Boba Fett Star Wars Holiday Special Animation Script & Character Model Sheets Package

My friend Mike F, proprietor of 4th Moon Toys in Toronto, runs an annual special "Life Week" sale full of cool goodies both vintage and modern. Being a fan of Star Wars books, especially the oddball ones, I was particularly interested in this book by John Celestri, formerly an animator at Nelvana Studios here in Canada, and an industry artist and creator for over 50 years. The book was offered in a limited edition signed by the author with a bonus autographed print. SOLD!

The book arrived quickly and was all that I'd hoped. It's a pretty slim paperback, magazine sized and perfect bound, with colour covers and a B&W interior, all on high-quality slick paper with heavy card covers. 

It has some awesome character reference pictures done by John for the holiday special animation. They're so good!

The book also includes the full shooting script of the Fett cartoon from the Holiday Special...

...and of course many many renderings of the sinister bounty hunter himself!

As if the book wasn't cool enough, the package included this signed Fett print by Celestri. I put it in a frame and it's hanging upstairs in my house. 

Highly recommended to Fett fans and enthusiasts of the Holiday Special. The tv show was awful for the most part but the Fett cartoon was AWESOME and this book is a great memento of that time in Star Wars history.

Millennium Falcon (Kenner ESB version)

Well I've blogged about the Millennium Falcon before, and regular readers (both of you?) will know that it's a toy I never had as a kid, but always wanted. Although somewhat underscale for the 3 3/4" mini-action figures, until the AT-AT came along it was the biggest and most expensive Star Wars vehicle. It's awesome. 

This example was very kindly given to me recently by my late wife's cousin Austin, it was part of his and his brother's childhood collection. Kudos to you guys for keeping the box, Austin, and well done on keeping this thing in one piece. So many Star Wars vehicles got smashed to pieces, blown up with fireworks, etc. and it's great to see that one like this survived.

While the box front carried a new image specific to The Empire Strikes Back, the rest of the package art remained the same as on Star Wars-branded examples.

Gotta set up the tableau right!! The box image is so great, but the eagle-eyed will note I added some "diversity" to the Bespin Guard group. I only had two white Guards in my own collection...

The character mix here is kind of interesting too. Dengar is literally 10 feet away from the people he's supposed to capture, but he's just stood there having a chat with Lobot. 

Meanwhile Lando, Han and Leia are visiting but all have guns in their hands (!) while the Bespin Guards seem unconcerned that these two strangers are packing heat while talking to their boss.

These three discussing the Cloud City Cafeteria's amazing pulled-pork sandwiches maybe...?

Chewbacca working as usual.

Droids hiding in the ship interior. Would've been a good idea for Threepio at least, considering what happened to him in Cloud City.

If you look at the tableau on the box, it's strange... the camera vantage looks low, but you can still clearly see the droids inside the ship. Maybe they tilted the Falcon for the shot, I can't quite figure it out.

Some beauty shots, this ship cleaned up so nicely and looks so good.

Of course, as with most childhood vehicles, some small accessories went missing over the years. The training arm and ball and the hatch struts are 3D printed replacements, unobtrusively marked as such. They look quite good, the struts are kind of translucent but that's OK, makes them less likely to be mistaken for originals. 

Fortunately the old ones were just lost, and not broken off in the hatch holes as often happened.

The space chess table was missing too but I sourced an original one to replace it - they're not hard to find.

Cockpit is all original equipment and looks great! Austin, thank you again for this ship, it's a wonderful piece.

I guess I also should offer an apology for it being over a year since the last post here, but it's been busy. Anyway I will have another post coming up shortly featuring a neat item that's on the way from 4th Moon Toys... 

Darth Vader and C-3PO Carrying Cases

Some unsung heroes of collecting here - the infamous carry cases. Seems like you can't swing a dead tauntaun sometimes without hitting a Darth Vader case with one broken hinge, but when you find one with the inserts and sticker sheet it's still something special for a production completist like me. As for the 3PO case, these were never sold in Canada and have been something I've always been on the lookout for. Finally found one!

This ESB Vader case is a Canadian version (you'll see) and as with many finds in my collection, I have Mike Freeman of 4th Moon Toys to thank for it. Mike spotted this one in Winnipeg on Facebook Marketplace, and while he didn't have an interest in picking it up for his shop stock (mainly due to shipping cost), he very kindly sent me the ad. As I didn't have a case with inserts in my collection I quickly made a deal with the seller.

The seller was a woman about my age whose mother had bought her Star Wars toys when she was a child. This case was the last remnant of her collection and was essentially unused. It came with the insert and an unapplied sheet of stickers.

The insert is nice and crisp with great lithography.

Here's the sticker sheet - note the rather untidy borders, which I am advised are a peculiarity of the Canadian version of the case.

Back of the sheet with manufacturer identification ("Mactac") and "Made in/Fabrique au Canada".

Interior of case with no stickers applied, ever.

Note bilingual identity on the insert. No "L'Empire Contra-Attaque" there though!

Which brings us to this definitely minty RotJ C-3PO carry case with its distinctive vacuum-metallized finish. This special gold finish is infamous from the cover of the book that brought many of us old-timers (back) into collecting - Steve Sansweet's "From Concept to Screen to Collectible." This book featured a very cool  shot of a Darth Vader case done up in gold vac-metallizing ("one of less than 100 originally created by Kenner Products as a packaging sample") and it looked awesome!

In any event, I've always wanted to add a nice 3PO case to my collection. I just picked up this one from Mike at his shop on a recent trip to Toronto and although it wouldn't fit in my checked luggage, it made the trip back with me as a carry-on.

This one also came with its insert showing 65 different figures then-available in the range. 

I just think these inserts are really cool.

Stickers are mostly unapplied...

... as the original owner got about halfway through applying them and obviously lost interest!

The 3PO case includes a lengthy statement and 1983 date, but the Vader's is limited to some faint chicken-scratchings on the inside of the front.

Interestingly, period catalog advertisements describe the C-3PO carry case as "life-size"! I guess that could well be the case, as it's noticeably much larger than the Vader case.

So that's it for these two cases. As noted, Vader cases are super-common but 3PO cases much less so. I did find a good use for busted Vader cases though - you can use a Dremel to cut off the hinges and separate the two halves of the case, polish up the front with Plexus or another quality plastic polish, and hang the front half of the case in your collecting room... or in my case, give it to your Star Wars-loving nephew to hang on his bedroom wall :-) 

Unlicensed Darth Vader Ceramic Lamp

Whaddaya think of this?? Back in the summer my good friend Mike of 4th Moon Toys tipped me off to this item that was for sale on our local kijiji site: a vintage "unlicensed" Darth Vader ceramic lamp.

This thing is super-cool and although not particularly rare or valuable, can be tough to find undamaged and with the original clear plastic lightsaber.

Back in the day, DIY ceramics were a real thing... people would have parties at their houses, and someone would bring in a bunch of ceramic stuff they'd cast for the partygoers to paint as a fun activity (and to generate a bit of cash of course). Then the person would take the ceramics back and fire them, then the attendees would go pick them up. Sometimes the ceramics maker had a retail shop where people would come to paint ceramic items, and again the shop owner would fire them for later pickup. The items came in all different themes, but pretty much all were unlicensed by any legitimate trademark or copyright holder. This Darth Vader is a great example.

  

The lamp is hollow of course, and a short string of incandescent coloured lights fits up inside, shining through the eyes and details on the chest plate, and of course illuminating the lightsaber. 

Here's a short video clip of the item all lit up. Not sure how it works exactly but once it's warmed up, the lights blink different colours, and things get pretty freaky. So cool.

Faint date marking on the bottom of the item reads "1982" with initials. Certainly no copyright or trademark info to be found here!

I love this lamp and want to thank Mike again for putting me onto it. Of course these things are relatively delicate and don't travel well, so finding one locally is really the only way to get them. The Star Wars Collectors' Association has a few pages with a bunch of information on these unlicensed items here, if you want to learn more and see some really crazy items.

I hope everybody gets as much of a kick out of this as I do, and I hope you're having a great Holiday season!

5-Minute "Vintage" Custom: K-3PO

What can I say - when you're on a roll, you're on a roll. And right now I've been rolling with the vintage customs. Here is the latest - K-3PO, hero of Echo Base, from The Empire Strikes Back.

While you can dive as deeply as you want into the Expanded Universe lore, suffice to say that K-3PO was a protocol droid in the service of the Rebel Alliance. Apparently his master was somewhat of a military historian, and loaded up K-3PO with tons of military knowledge, to the extent that the droid became somewhat of a master tactician himself. This resulted in K-3PO's appointment to the rank of Captain (denoted by the two red dots on his chest) and command of Echo Base's droid pool. Sadly he perished after a direct hit on the command center (wow - it just occurred to me I could have gotten out the Rebel Command Center for this photoshoot!)
 

Obviously a super-straightforward repaint of an original C-3PO figure (loose limbs, worn plating and all) that I had stored in a Vader case with a ton of other spare figures. Just a spray with satin white, paint in the yellow photoreceptors, and two red dots for the insignia, and he's done. It took longer for the paint to dry than it did to paint him in the first place.

Rebel Commander and Princess Leia discuss the Echo Base evacuation while K-3PO offers unsolicited advice stands by to assist.

This was a fun quick project and moves another beater figure from storage into the display cabinet. Most collectors will have one (or many) beat-up 3POs and this is a great, easy way to take a dip into the custom pool without too much time or effort at all.  Fun!