As Jeff Jacob and friends from his country club gather in the clubhouse for a watch party later this month, it won’t be for an NFL playoff game.
Instead, surrounded by his buddies from the Colorado golf community where he lives — which Jacob describes as a “Cheers” vibe (everybody knows your name) — the entertainment on the television will be a bit different than one would expect.
The group will be live-streaming an auction from Pennsylvania-based Hake’s Auctions.
Why?
Because Hake's is selling the first group from Jacob’s collection of more than 3,000 vintage toys, arguably among the most valuable in the world.
For Jacob, whose house doubles as a museum of the rarest and most complete, mint condition toys one could imagine, it’s a long time coming.
Like most kids of the 1970s, “Star Wars” was everything for Jacob. Particularly the action figures.
“Once Star Wars came out, it was the thing that we all wanted as kids,” Jacob told cllct. “It’s what I wanted the most to cling to, and I just loved movies from very young.”
He collected the figures growing up, but by the time he was around 12, he got into BMX bikes and other teenage pursuits, selling his once-coveted collection to fund his new hobbies.
A few years later, around age 19, he and a buddy were on their way back from a construction job. Chatting about the toys they loved growing up, the pair decided to drop by a comic book store. There Jacob laid eyes on new “Star Wars” toys. It didn’t take long for him to fall back in love.
Shortly after, the duo was at the mall and saw a KB Toys store across from the food court.
“What the hell? I'm gonna buy these,” Jacob recalled. “That was all. It took me right back in.”
His collecting journey began modestly.
In the days before eBay, it was more of a hunt to find the figures he desired, checking in at brick-and-mortar stores. Recently out of school and not flush with cash, Jacob scraped together whatever he could. “If it was spending 100 bucks back then, I was pretty excited.”
It didn’t take long for him to make his first big purchase — one that would prove to be an origin story of sorts for the prolific collector.
A friend of Jacob's was helping a woman raise money for an orphanage she ran out of her house, and she happened to have been an avid collector herself, picking up every toy line of the ‘80s, still in the package.
When Jacob got the call, he was intrigued, but balked at the initial $4,000 price tag. "I was like, ‘You're out of your mind, bro.'"
But that night he couldn’t sleep thinking about it. Up until that point he had mainly collected “loose” figures (outside of the package) and wasn’t well-educated on the value of her collection. He told his now-wife, and they headed over to the woman’s house.
After looking through everything, Jacob saw it was all in incredible shape — “like she just pulled it off the factory shelf.”
He asked her how she came up with the price, and she said it was based on a monthly price guide, with a 50% premium added.
Still not comfortable paying the $4,000, Jacob looked around the house and asked her to throw in a few more pieces, such as a “Revenge of the Jedi" poster (the original title for "Return of the Jedi," which was changed shortly before the film's release).
They had a deal.
Today, Jacobs say that 150-piece collection is worth around $250,000.
Though he has since upgraded, sold, or otherwise replaced most of the items from his first big haul, Jacob still has the figures from “The Empire Strikes Back,” though not for long, as they are going to auction along with the rest of his collection.
Maybe it was this first major exposure to such a pristine collection, or perhaps a result of Jacob’s own perfectionist streak as a home-builder — likely a combination — but his entire collecting philosophy became rigidly focused on only the best-of-the-best.
“Since that was the first big acquisition I ever made, and it was primo, anything else after that I was like, ‘My God, this isn’t anything like I have!”
Jacob struggled to find anything in good condition for a few years. Nothing worthy of his vision for his collection.
Then, eBay arrived and the entire world opened up to him.
In 1999, another breakthrough elevated his collection even further.
At the “Star Wars Celebration” held at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver, weeks before the release of “The Phantom Menace,” Jacob decided to set up at his first show.
“I hadn't sold practically any of my extra stuff,” Jacob said. “I’m just gonna set up at the show and see how I do because I'd always just bought, bought, bought, bought, bought.”
He sold nearly all his inventory. Suddenly, he had the cash on hand to make some bigger plays.
At the show he met Tom Derby, a well-known collector and authenticator. Jacob and Derby forged a friendship, and Jacob began buying from Derby, giving him access to top-quality pieces he had long been looking for.
Jacob began hunting down every single figure and variant from the original 96 characters, totaling around 1,300 variants.
Soon, after Derby came into a collection of Double-Telescoping toys — one of the rarest variants in the world — Jacob was able to secure them for his collection via a trade of his G.I. Joe toys.
“They were just always behind the curtain,” Jacob said. “And that's how so many of these deals up until the last two or three years. Most of these big-ticket items are always behind the curtain somewhere.
His decision to sell his monumental collection was not taken lightly.
Jacob, who has been with his wife since high school, says his collecting has become a part of his identity — even to her. But as they planned to move into a new house, calculating the cost of a new area for his collectibles, they saw it would cost around $350,000.
“I would love to see my collection go to the world and know the people that it went to, and enjoy that whole process and still keep all my loose figures,” Jacob said.
After speaking with Hake’s, he walked into his living room and told his wife. “You’d never quit collecting,” she responded. “Don’t even talk to me about that.”
“She was way more emotional than I was,” Jacob recalled, “because it's been a part of our lives basically since we've been together.”
Arguably the top item included in the initial auction of his collection at Hake’s is a 1978 Obi-Wan Kenobi Double-Telescoping figure graded AFA 85+. A lower graded example sold for more than $75,000 in 2017. “DT” examples come to market extremely infrequently, let alone in such high grade. Hake's has placed an estimate of more than $100,000 on the lot.
Other items in the catalog includes rare variants of vintage “Star Wars” toys never-before seen at public auction and some of the highest graded figures in the world. The plan is to sell the collection in six separate auctions with more than 500 items included in each.
“Let's just say it'll be a crazy year for me.”
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.