The rocket-firing Boba Fett prototype toy — considered the holy grail of “Star Wars” toys — shattered records at auction in 2024.
Prior to this year, the highest price ever paid for the toy was $236,000.
Then, in May, Heritage sold one for $525,000, a record for any toy in history.
It took just three months for that record to be blown away, as Goldin sold one for $1.34 million.
Next week, another Boba Fett prototype at Heritage will attempt to top that.
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Both of the record sales featured highly rare variants of the already-scarce toy (it’s believed around 100 were ever produced).
The $525,000 Heritage figure was one of just two production paint scheme examples and carried provenance tying it to the Kern’s Collection, which famously once held nine of the rocket-firing Fetts in the collection.
Goldin’s was a “mailer” variant, placed in a mailing box and kept by a Kenner engineer. It was sold along with its original box, which would have been used to mail the toy in 1979. Prior to the auction, no other mailer J-slot variants had ever transacted publicly.
Though prices for less distinguished examples have not followed suit with similarly lofty price tags — such as one that sold for $114,224 earlier this month at Hake’s — the demand for the rarest variants has been on strong display.
That collector preference could be on display as Heritage sells a figure that checks many of those same boxes.
“It was the first million-dollar Star Wars toy, and it will continue. More of them will break that number without a doubt, possibly this one here,” Heritage’s action figures and toys consignment director Justin Caravoulias said.
Caravoulias says after the auction house’s sale last year, all of the figures went up in value as it was introduced to a demographic beyond the toy audience.
“Going from $10,000 to over a million dollars in a matter of 15 years shows that there is a market of interested people for this, and it's only getting stronger,” he said.
With respect to the specific figure offered in the upcoming auction, Caravoulias says it once belonged to the same owner of the $525,000 figure, and, when both sold privately in 2021, it was valued at twice the price.
Why?
This example boasts what Caravoulias says is the most unique color combination of any rocket-firing Boba Fett known to exist, with an alternate paint scheme of seven distinct colors (standard was five), including added white on its jet pack, thrusters and wrist dart, as well as its jet pack (red), its chest armor connector (blue) and helmet (black), factors which he says provide extreme intrigue among serious collectors..
Of the handful of hand-painted examples, this is one of just two in this alternate paint scheme, and the single highest-graded. Additionally, it once belonged to actor and musician Rick Springfield.
With bidding currently sitting at $187,500, with buyer’s premium, time will tell if the unique nature of this figure can power it to new heights.
But for Caravoulias, an avid toy collector in his own right, the nuances are all part of the beauty. “I treat everything as if I’m a purveyor of little pieces of history,” he said. “To the average person on the street, toys are just toys, but to the people who collect them, it’s part of who they are as people. I don't think it could be understated for people who collect toys how important they are to them.”
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.