Were they rare

Being a newbie I have been researching all things vintage starwars. I have noticed a heap of toys playsets etc that I had no idea existed back in the day. I'd heard rumours of the death star and land speeder but never saw one. Things like sandcrawlers dewbacks and dagobah playsets I had no idea about. Were these things hard to get back then?

No they are not rare. Infact very few theings vintage Star Wars are rare, depending on your perception of rare I suppose. When were you born? Remember most of the vintage line were only in shops for a matter of months rather than years. I never saw any of those items in the shops because I wasn't born until 1980.

If you search them on ebay you will see you could buy one of each today if you have deep pockets. :shock: :lol:

I wasn't quite old enough to experience the shops full of the toys at their peak, but given the quantities still floating around I think it's safe to say they weren't rare. I'm sure some parts of the country it may have been harder to find certain releases at times though.

Yes, in the view of a modern day collector there are some specific examples of a particular variant of a figure on a type of card that are considered rare, but the toys in general are not. Which means when you see the word 'RARE' in an ebay title, 99.9999% of the time it's bullshit.

It's also important to remember that the internet changed eveything. When I was a kid I couldn't find a biker scout or Luke X-wing for love nor money, had to resort to second hand ones in the late 80s. But Kenner made millions of them, they were just either sold out or not distributed to the area I was living at the time. Back then it was a lot harder to find things locally. The only 'last 17' figure I saw as a kid was R2 pop-up, I had no idea the others existed until I saw them in a book in the early 90s.

But no the vast majority of production items are not rare, they were made in the tens of thousands or even millions.

It's worth mentioning that some of the toys were not released in the UK (other than the odd few that may have been imported), only in America and some other territories.

Items like the Dewback and Sandcrawler, the electronic X-wing, the Kenner variants of the 3 Star Wars playsets, the Tatooine Skiff, A-wing and others, would have been extremely rare in the UK back in the day. I was aware that some of these existed, from pictures in Kenner catalogues that were packed in with imported boxed items or mailaway action figures, but never saw or heard of anyone having these items in the 70s or 80s.

There were toys that never made it to the next movie's range. As a child of ESB, I never saw a Death Star Playset on shelves. My slightly younger Star Wars loving friend who got onboard during ROTJ doesn't remember seeing A Cloud Car or Dagobah.

I was also a ESB boy so never saw any of the SW playsets (Death Star, Droid Factory, etc) in real life - I yearned after the Imperial Troop Transport but never saw it in a shop. I only saw a Drawback as a teen in a collectables shop selling for the monstrous price of MIB 50 pound.

In fact, I only remember seeing one SW branded figure - Greedo - which I got from my local shop. it was a Kenner IIRC.

Apart from that it was all ESB (and then ROTJ.)

To this day, I wouldn't be able to list off all the SW playsets etc off the top of my head - But could definitely do that with ESB and ROTJ!

UKS

UKS said:

I was also a ESB boy so never saw any of the SW playsets (Death Star, Droid Factory, etc) in real life - I yearned after the Imperial Troop Transport but never saw it in a shop. I only saw a Drawback as a teen in a collectables shop selling for the monstrous price of MIB 50 pound.

In fact, I only remember seeing one SW branded figure - Greedo - which I got from my local shop. it was a Kenner IIRC.

Apart from that it was all ESB (and then ROTJ.)

To this day, I wouldn't be able to list off all the SW playsets etc off the top of my head - But could definitely do that with ESB and ROTJ!

UKS

Click to expand...

I had an Imperial troop transporter from a little town near the Gower in Swansea. I must have been possibly 8 as I had already had the falcon for Christmas. From what I remember it was a large shop for a town and had so much Star Wars stuff.
How I picked that mind I will never know, it must have been in a price range, or one on display, as I always wanted an At-At. But boy did I love it, I must have gone through so many batteries :lol:

Don't often get to post it but here's me having just finished opening an Imperial Troop Transporter at Christmas in 1984. Only available on SW packaging and still in the shops even then.

welshwookie said:

UKS said:

I was also a ESB boy so never saw any of the SW playsets (Death Star, Droid Factory, etc) in real life - I yearned after the Imperial Troop Transport but never saw it in a shop. I only saw a Drawback as a teen in a collectables shop selling for the monstrous price of MIB 50 pound.

In fact, I only remember seeing one SW branded figure - Greedo - which I got from my local shop. it was a Kenner IIRC.

Apart from that it was all ESB (and then ROTJ.)

To this day, I wouldn't be able to list off all the SW playsets etc off the top of my head - But could definitely do that with ESB and ROTJ!

UKS

Click to expand...

I had an Imperial troop transporter from a little town near the Gower in Swansea. I must have been possibly 8 as I had already had the falcon for Christmas. From what I remember it was a large shop for a town and had so much Star Wars stuff.
How I picked that mind I will never know, it must have been in a price range, or one on display, as I always wanted an At-At. But boy did I love it, I must have gone through so many batteries :lol:

Click to expand...

TheJabbaWookie said:

Don't often get to post it but here's me having just finished opening an Imperial Troop Transporter at Christmas in 1984. Only available on SW packaging and still in the shops even then.

welshwookie said:

UKS said:

I was also a ESB boy so never saw any of the SW playsets (Death Star, Droid Factory, etc) in real life - I yearned after the Imperial Troop Transport but never saw it in a shop. I only saw a Drawback as a teen in a collectables shop selling for the monstrous price of MIB 50 pound.

In fact, I only remember seeing one SW branded figure - Greedo - which I got from my local shop. it was a Kenner IIRC.

Apart from that it was all ESB (and then ROTJ.)

To this day, I wouldn't be able to list off all the SW playsets etc off the top of my head - But could definitely do that with ESB and ROTJ!

UKS

Click to expand...

I had an Imperial troop transporter from a little town near the Gower in Swansea. I must have been possibly 8 as I had already had the falcon for Christmas. From what I remember it was a large shop for a town and had so much Star Wars stuff.
How I picked that mind I will never know, it must have been in a price range, or one on display, as I always wanted an At-At. But boy did I love it, I must have gone through so many batteries :lol:

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

That's a terrific photo! Thanks for sharing it

That's a great picture! I wish I had any of me opening presents.

The Imperial Troop Transporter was definitely available in the ESB era. Like the Darth Vader TIE Fighter and Snowspeeder, it was re-released by Palitoy in 1982 in a different box (the difference being the addition of the Bounty Hunter logos on the packaging). These box variations are reasonably common so it must have been plentiful in shops at that time.

TheJabbaWookie said:

Don't often get to post it but here's me having just finished opening an Imperial Troop Transporter at Christmas in 1984. Only available on SW packaging and still in the shops even then.

welshwookie said:

UKS said:

I was also a ESB boy so never saw any of the SW playsets (Death Star, Droid Factory, etc) in real life - I yearned after the Imperial Troop Transport but never saw it in a shop. I only saw a Drawback as a teen in a collectables shop selling for the monstrous price of MIB 50 pound.

In fact, I only remember seeing one SW branded figure - Greedo - which I got from my local shop. it was a Kenner IIRC.

Apart from that it was all ESB (and then ROTJ.)

To this day, I wouldn't be able to list off all the SW playsets etc off the top of my head - But could definitely do that with ESB and ROTJ!

UKS

Click to expand...

I had an Imperial troop transporter from a little town near the Gower in Swansea. I must have been possibly 8 as I had already had the falcon for Christmas. From what I remember it was a large shop for a town and had so much Star Wars stuff.
How I picked that mind I will never know, it must have been in a price range, or one on display, as I always wanted an At-At. But boy did I love it, I must have gone through so many batteries :lol:

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Wow, look at those TRI logos.

That's quite a picture JabbaW.

It does mess with my memories seeing a Transport sharing a Christmas with Trilogos. Great stuff.

I remember the fascination I held as a kid for the Palitoy Death Star playset (poring over the details from the cardback it featured on) but never once saw it in the shops in the early to mid 1980s when I was actively seeking out SW related toys. Many years later in mid early 20s (prior to 'The Phantom Menace') I spotted a boxed Kenner version of the playset in the window of an antiques shop in Edinburgh and being intrigued by it as well as very amused by the £80 price-tag!

I received a couple of original SW items in the mid 1980s that were otherwise going in the bin (!!!) from a family friend of my cousin who was a good few years older than ourselves - namely an original Palitoy landspeeder and a boxed and complete Droid Factory that was of most interest due to the 3 legged R2D2 included. I never saw either in the shops, infact it was really only Darth Vader's Tie Fighter and some of the left-over/unsold 12" figures that I ever spotted with the Star Wars logo beyond the action figures.

After I had moved on from buying SW toys I recall visiting my childhood toyshop where so many purchases had been made (it was the go-to place for Star Wars!) while looking for a He-Man toy for my brother's birthday and seeing a couple of boxed Skiffs, an A-Wing and a few discounted JEDI Imperial Shuttles looking rather forlorn and lost in an otherwise SW free shop - time (and the buying habits of kids) had definitely moved on. Just a year and a half before there had been B-Wings and Y- wings everywhere!

Where's the time machine?!!

TheJabbaWookie said:

Don't often get to post it but here's me having just finished opening an Imperial Troop Transporter at Christmas in 1984. Only available on SW packaging and still in the shops even then.

welshwookie said:

UKS said:

I was also a ESB boy so never saw any of the SW playsets (Death Star, Droid Factory, etc) in real life - I yearned after the Imperial Troop Transport but never saw it in a shop. I only saw a Drawback as a teen in a collectables shop selling for the monstrous price of MIB 50 pound.

In fact, I only remember seeing one SW branded figure - Greedo - which I got from my local shop. it was a Kenner IIRC.

Apart from that it was all ESB (and then ROTJ.)

To this day, I wouldn't be able to list off all the SW playsets etc off the top of my head - But could definitely do that with ESB and ROTJ!

UKS

Click to expand...

I had an Imperial troop transporter from a little town near the Gower in Swansea. I must have been possibly 8 as I had already had the falcon for Christmas. From what I remember it was a large shop for a town and had so much Star Wars stuff.
How I picked that mind I will never know, it must have been in a price range, or one on display, as I always wanted an At-At. But boy did I love it, I must have gone through so many batteries :lol:

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Wow nice picture from your childhood, cool to see a tri-logo solo moc, wicket and luke bespin, it is hard to see what the other moc are, but it looks like there is more ? :?

Are the A.Team a puzzel ? 8)

That is a cool photo, Optimus Prime as well can I spy? 8) :lol: