A plastic “Star Wars” action figure less than four inches tall and with peeling paint sold at auction for $525,000.
The ultra-rare 3 3/4-inch rocket-powered Boba Fett space movie figure is one of only two to have survived the 1970s production line, according to a release. Heritage Auctions Announces This Week.
The priceless bounty hunter action figure was among a collection of “Star Wars” items that sold for a total of $1.66 million at an auction in Texas on May 31. The sale also included a Boba Fett figure, the Skywalker family lightsabers and an early script for “The Adventures of Luke Starkiller,” attracting more than 1,500 bidders from around the world.
“The rocket-firing Boba Fett action figure has long since become such a mythical icon that people all over the world know it even if they don’t collect anything,” said Joe Maddalena, vice president of Heritage Auctions. “We knew this figure had a chance to make it into the record books, and we were thrilled to see it become the most valuable toy in the world.”
Auctioneers said the buyer wished to remain anonymous.
The sale price for this small figurine was more than double that of another Boba Fett toy, which sold for $236,000 in 2022.
The price surpassed the previous record of $302,000 set in 2010 for a special Barbie doll that came with a one-carat diamond, Heritage said in a press release.
Another Boba Fett action figure, released in 1979 and still in its original packaging, sold for just over $84,000 at auction on May 31.
This expensive figure has become a rare commodity as it was never widely distributed thanks to another sci-fi entertainment series, “Battlestar Galactica.”
Kenner, which makes Star Wars toys, has pulled its missile-firing Boba Fett after reports that another rocker-firing “Battlestar Galactica” action figure posed a choking hazard.
“Projectiles have always been a delicate subject,” says former Kenner engineer Jacob Miles, “but when they had problems with Battlestar Galactica, we immediately stopped it and destroyed the whole thing.”
Kenner’s Boba Fett toys were eventually released, but the rocket was glued to the figurine’s back, and the only known pair of prototypes were removed and recalled by company employees.
Boba Fett has become one of the most popular fictional characters in the Star Wars franchise and was the central character of a television miniseries titled The Book of Boba Fett.
In Star Wars, he is depicted as the cloned son of bounty hunter Jango Fett, who was decapitated in front of him as a child, leading him to become a feared figure in his father’s footsteps.
With post wire
