Toy Fair Princess Leia Organa 41-back MOC (Kenner Canada)

As regular readers (hi mum!) will know, I'm not really a MOC collector. I like loose figures and boxed-but-not-MISB stuff, because I like to be able to play with my toys examine them close up. Having said that, I do have a couple of MOCs in my collection. The most interesting one is this Canadian 41-back Princess Leia Organa.

I picked this up at a comic shop in north Toronto when I lived there in the early 1990s. It was inexpensive (about $25 IIRC) but obviously in pretty bad shape, hence the low price. It was only many years later that I discovered what may be some interesting history behind the piece.

As you can see, the front of the cardback is torn in a very particular way, and the back has glue residue in a strip from top to bottom. Almost like it's been glued to something, eh? Well, according to theswca, this may be indicative of display at the Kenner booth at the Canadian Toy Fair in the early '80s. The Princess Leia Organa figure is a documented display figure at Toy Fair and the damage on mine is consistent with that usage. Toy Fair display figures were glued back to front in a particular, distinct way for display at the Kenner Canada booth:

Photo Credit: The Star Wars Collectors Archive/Jim McCallum

HOWEVER, Canadian super-collector Scott Bradley and others have cautioned that while Canadian multi-pack cardbacks were usually stapled together, some may have been glued together in a fashion consistent with the damage seen here. This means that this kind of damaged cardback doesn't necessarily indicate a Toy Fair provenance. The only sure way to tell is if the cardback in question has part of another identical cardback stuck to it - since multipacks don't contain multiples of the same figure.

 

The bubble on my example is perfect, with a nice visible waffle to the adhesive. Unfortunately the figure is a bit discoloured in places... grr.

Unpunched, for what that's worth given the rest of the damage...!

There's no way to be certain that this piece was actually a Toy Fair display sample. However, I think the evidence in its favour is fairly compelling. The MOC was bought in Toronto in the early '90s, it's a Canadian 41-back Leia that is a cardback used at Toy Fair, and it has damage consistent with Toy Fair display. The irony is that I only learned about the possible connection from a "U-grading" thread on Rebelscum where people posted pictures of their most beaten-up cardbacks... I posted a picture of this one, and a fellow Scummer informed me of the possible Toy Fair connection! Needless to say, this one's remaining in my collection in its current state ;-)