HELPING YOU TAKE CARE OF YOUR FIGURE(S)!

star wars old school

by neil ferrin
(uk england)

Hi there,

I just wanted to see if you know what my star wars figure is worth, I have a 1978 Jawa which is supposed to be very rare, he came with the vinyl cape and the cloth cape also......

I read in an English paper about 4 years ago that he was worth £4,000 but I held on to him along with all my other collections I've had since I was a kid- I'm now 31( how sad) I felt I couldn't part with any of them because they were such a big part of my child hood, I watched the films so much as a kid that my mum and dad had to buy many copies on vhs as they couldn't cope with my addiction to the Wars!!!

I've now got 2 kids and have settled down and am thinking of parting with my lovely collection of toys, comics and collectables, what would be your advice on the best way to get them priced and sold on to someone who will appreciate them!!!!???

Many thanks.....

Neil -UK

Ans

Hi Neil,

Thanks for the email, first off I will assume you bought this figure and therefore are certain it is genuine, but fyi (and others) here's a site that gives an excellent description on how to check if you have a real one or not.

http://web.ncf.ca/cn333/vcjawa.htm

And some ebay auctions:

http://shop.ebay.com/sis.html?_nkw=Vinyl+Cape+Jawa+Jawa+Vinyl+Cape+Vintage

To find the figures true value though do a search on "completed auctions" and checkout online retailers etc.

Remember a retailer (who obviously has his overheads to cover) would rarely pay much more than 50% of a figures TRUE value.

You would therefore probably be better selling them privately; Craig Lists is a good place and ioffer.com. However, the problem with selling privately is that you don’t have a “base” of collectors to contact, whereas an established retailer would.

You could also try listing them on fan-site forums and collectors’ forums.

Another idea is to check for local collectors stores, check the comic-book locator here http://previewsworld.com/public/

Generally the comic book shops and specialist "toy" shops are the places you want to look for and if I was you I would look for someone local for a cash deal, remember this is a very specialist market so they may have to wait to get a return on their investment, and they will have to do all the hard work in finding a buyer so try not to be too "greedy" about the price.

Hope this is helpful for you.

ps. Remember a big factor another VERY important factor is whether it is MOC (mint on the card), condition etc.