Dengar Release Order?

Snaketibe

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I like to display my loose figures in the wave order Kenner released them, and then within each wave, in their order of appearance within the films. So for example, the very first figures released were the Early Bird kit 4, and so the first 4 figures in my loose display are R2-D2, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker and then Chewbacca, in that order.

For the most part, getting this order correct is fairly straightforward, however I am currently moving my figures, and would like to take the opportunity to correct any sequencing errors I may have made. One such may well be Dengar, as I have never been completely sure whereabouts he should sit in the sequence. It's well known that Boba Fett's first release in the States was as a mail-away figure after the first 20 Star Wars figures were released, but before the first wave of 10 figures from Empire. The same is true of Bossk, and for that reason in my collection those two figures sit, in that order, after the first 20 Star Wars figures, the 3-Legged R2-D2 from the Droid Factory, and the Dianoga from the Kenner Death Star, but before the remaining 9 Empire 1st wave figures.

All a bit anal? Probably, but it keeps me happy :)

However, Dengar of course was also a mail-away figure. His first carded appearance in the UK was on a Palitoy 41B back, according to the immensely useful 'Mr Palitoy's Cardback Guide' (https://www.freewebs.com/mrpalitoy/), but since he was (I think!) released before that as a mail-away figure (and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the States got him before the UK did), I am not 100% sure where to 'correctly' position him in the sequence.

Currently I have him between Yoda and Lobot (which is itself an error on my part, I believe, since Yoda was released before Han Bespin in the States, and hence I need to swap Han and Yoda around) - see below.

All of which brings me to the obvious question anyone still reading this will have already guessed; does anyone know the 'correct' position to place Dengar in the sequence? Or to put it another way, does anyone know when the mail-away Dengar was released relative to the other figures?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks :)

Mr Bump - 01.jpg
 

lee gray

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The offer started in may and ended 31st August 1981 and it said allow 28 days for delivery so between June and September he was posted.
 

Wreck-It Ralph

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Sounds like an in depth question which I have no idea of the answer too, but out of curiosity how do you work out the chronological order of variations or don't you collect them?
 

StarWarsFan

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TheJabbaWookie said:
Wreck-It Ralph said:
Sounds like an in depth question which I have no idea of the answer too, but out of curiosity how do you work out the chronological order of variations or don't you collect them?
Man, don't get Jeremy started :lol:
:lol:
 

Snaketibe

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lee gray said:
The offer started in may and ended 31st August 1981 and it said allow 28 days for delivery so between June and September he was posted.
That's great information, thank you. So it seems likely Dengar would probably have been released ahead of the rest of the 1981 41-back Kenner wave. If so, placing him after Yoda seems to be correct, with Han Bespin moving further down the sequence (my Han is out of place as I mistakenly thought he was released earlier than he was).

Thanks again for your help :)
 

Snaketibe

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TheJabbaWookie said:
I always thought after Yoda but before Han Bespin, then came Lobot, but I grant you I haven't researched this much :lol:
Thanks :)

I used to think much the same, but in my OCD aim of displaying them in global release order, which essentially means Kenner wave order, and then in film appearance order within each wave, if the Kenner 41-back wave figures were all released simultaneously (apart from Dengar), and if the info listed here is correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kenner_Star_Wars_action_figures then I think the order goes:

Yoda
Dengar
Han Bespin
Leia Hoth
2-1B (seen working on the dead tauntaun just before Han rides out to look for Luke, ahead of his more prominent appearance tending Luke later on)
Rebel Commander (if we assume the moustache makes the figure Bren Derlin. Otherwise he should go after Dengar)
Imperial Commander
AT-AT Driver
Lobot
Ugnaught
 

Snaketibe

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Wreck-It Ralph said:
Sounds like an in depth question which I have no idea of the answer too, but out of curiosity how do you work out the chronological order of variations or don't you collect them?
I have been known to collect a variant or two in my time! :-D

But to be serious, yes I collect figure variants, but I display my loose figures in 2 separate cabinets. In the first, I keep my main loose run (including the major variants, like large and small head Han, etc.) and it is this one that I try to display in the OCD order mentioned previously in this thread. However, unless it's painfully obvious which variant came first (vinyl then cloth caped Jawa, small then large head Han, etc.) or unless I happen to know which came first (no teeth Lando then white teeth Lando), my OCD relaxes and I am not fussed in which order the variants get displayed.

The rest of my variants are in a second cabinet, and are far greater in number than the main run, since all figures apart from most of the last 17 have variants, and most of them have multiple variants (and by 'variants', I mean visually different variants, which is what interests me and is the limit I place on my variant collecting. I don't collect those COO variants which otherwise are indistinguishable from one another).
 

momike

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I always presumed the Rebelscum site was correct for the order of release

http://www.rebelscum.com/VINfigures.asp
 

Snaketibe

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momike said:
I always presumed the Rebelscum site was correct for the order of release

http://www.rebelscum.com/VINfigures.asp
Thanks for this. I was aware of this list, but had actually forgotten all about it! :oops: ... Hmmm, well looking at it now, what I will say is that it may very well be correct, however I cannot find anything on the site that explicitly states that the figures are listed in strict release order. Instead, the top of the page states that they are listed in 'Date stamp order', which isn't necessarily the same thing. Having said that, they do list the order of the figures I'm talking about as being:

Yoda
Dengar
Han Bespin
Lobot
Ugnaught
AT-AT Driver
Leia Hoth
Imperial Commander
Rebel Commander
2-1B

And of course, the Sears Cloud City playset was released in 1980 and came with 4 figures (Dengar, Han Bespin, Lobot and Ugnaught). Those same four figures plus the others listed above, apart from Yoda, made their carded debuts on Kenner 41-backs which (I believe!) were released in 1981. Therefore it does seem to be correct to list Dengar, Han Bespin, Lobot and Ugnaught first after Yoda, so perhaps the whole list is indeed not simply date stamp order, but also (presumably to the very best of the compiler's knowledge) release order.

So if I convert the above into wave order, then appearance order within each wave, the list becomes:

Yoda
Dengar
Han Bespin
Lobot
Ugnaught
Leia Hoth
2-1B
Rebel Commander
Imperial Commander
AT-AT Driver

It's all hard to say, and the waters are muddied by the possibility of human error / ignorance. I love Rebelscum (it's actually my Home Page :-D) and its hugely impressive photo archive, and maintaining it all is no mean feat. Having said that, if you read some of the write-ups on the vintage figures featured in their photo archive, you will quickly find numerous errors and inaccuracies (mostly small ones, but they're there nevertheless), which of course casts slight doubt on the accuracy of some stated or implied 'facts' elsewhere on the site.

It's a tough one, but in the absence of a more reliable source, I think I'm more inclined to believe Rebelscum's list than Wikipedia's
 

spoons

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Kellerman shares the same release order as Rebelscum too, and that's what I've always assumed to be correct

But after this thread I checked the SKU numbers on Ugnaught, Dengar and Han Bespin and they don't match at all - i'd go by the order of number in the top corner of the cardback unless someone can explain why Kellerman/RS used their system
 

Snaketibe

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spoons said:
Kellerman shares the same release order as Rebelscum too, and that's what I've always assumed to be correct

But after this thread I checked the SKU numbers on Ugnaught, Dengar and Han Bespin and they don't match at all - i'd go by the order of number in the top corner of the cardback unless someone can explain why Kellerman/RS used their system
Well obviously I don't know, otherwise I wouldn't have started this thread :-D, however if there is a problem with their SKU's, as stated in my last post above, perhaps the (probable) early release of the Han Bespin, Lobot, Ugnaught and Dengar figures in the Sears Cloud City playset put their production / carded release / SKU's out of whack with respect to the others?

However, thanks for confirming that Kellerman agrees with Rebelscum re the order, Andy. That was actually rather stupid of me as I own a copy of Kellerman, but didn't think to check it! :oops: However, if the order's good enough for Kellerman, then it's certainly good enough for me :D
 

Snaketibe

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TheJabbaWookie said:
So does Wolff's Variant Villains site and that man is a stickler for accuracy
https://swspaceclub.com/wbobafett/coo-guide-3-0/esb/#ESB
Thanks Jay. Again, if it's good enough for Wolff and Kellerman, it's good enough for me.
 

Wreck-It Ralph

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Snaketibe said:
Wreck-It Ralph said:
Sounds like an in depth question which I have no idea of the answer too, but out of curiosity how do you work out the chronological order of variations or don't you collect them?
I have been known to collect a variant or two in my time! :-D

But to be serious, yes I collect figure variants, but I display my loose figures in 2 separate cabinets. In the first, I keep my main loose run (including the major variants, like large and small head Han, etc.) and it is this one that I try to display in the OCD order mentioned previously in this thread. However, unless it's painfully obvious which variant came first (vinyl then cloth caped Jawa, small then large head Han, etc.) or unless I happen to know which came first (no teeth Lando then white teeth Lando), my OCD relaxes and I am not fussed in which order the variants get displayed.

The rest of my variants are in a second cabinet, and are far greater in number than the main run, since all figures apart from most of the last 17 have variants, and most of them have multiple variants (and by 'variants', I mean visually different variants, which is what interests me and is the limit I place on my variant collecting. I don't collect those COO variants which otherwise are indistinguishable from one another).

Out of curiosity which variant has the longest time gap between original release and variant release?

Is a Red Bar R5D4 MOC rare?
 

Snaketibe

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Wreck-It Ralph said:
Out of curiosity which variant has the longest time gap between original release and variant release?

Is a Red Bar R5D4 MOC rare?

Which variant has the longest gap? Sorry, no idea. Boba Fett seems a likely candidate seeing as how he debuted on a Star Wars card in his Hong Kong COO dark blue guise, and it wasn't until later Return of the Jedi cards and Tri-Logo cards that the light blue 'Tri-Logo' / PBP versions seemed to appear. Ditto the hollow tubes Tusken which didn't appear (to my knowledge) until Jedi cards. However, there's probably some other variant from the first 12 that didn't hit until even later Jedi cards that I don't know about.

Probably like a lot of variant collectors, I am better on the variants themselves (i.e. knowing which variants are available and what makes them variants, etc.) rather than knowing which particular card each one debuted on.

As for red bar R5-D4 MOCs, I really couldn't say how rare they are. One came up on eBay about 3 years ago on a Jedi card, just before loose prices of them tripled, and that sold for just over a hundred, so if that's any indication of rarity, they probably aren't tremendously rare carded, but as usual, if another forum member knows differently / better, hopefully they will chime in.
 

Snaketibe

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So looking at the Kellerman / Rebelscum / Wolff list, it raises a couple of other questions for me, and I'm hoping someone may be able to help answer them.

1) The Kellerman sequence seems to list figures in wave order, and then in alphabetical order within each wave. But if that's true, then the 8 new figures first shown on the 20-back cards seem to be split in two halves, with the 4 Cantina aliens listed first as one apparent wave / sub-wave, and then the 3 droids and Luke X-wing listed as a second wave. I was not aware of there being a split in these 8 figures' releases with half of them hitting the shelves before the other half (and maybe there wasn't here in the UK, for all I know), but does anyone know if that was indeed the case in the States? Were the 4 Cantina aliens released before the 3 droids and Luke X-Wing?

2) Admiral Ackbar is listed as being the first Return of the Jedi figure, which seems quite correct since he was famously a mail-away figure prior to the release of the first proper 65-back wave of Jedi figures. However, the Kellerman list places Lando Skiff Guard as the second figure released for Jedi, and I'm struggling to work out why. I'm not aware of Lando being a mail-away or an early release figure, but perhaps he was. Can anyone explain why he gets listed as the second Jedi figure, and was he released before the main 65-back wave?

Your help would be appreciated! Thanks :)
 
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