DENVER, Pa. – Just when Star Wars collectors thought they had seen it all, along came The Morphy Find. That’s the name that has been given to a recently unveiled trove of rare, high-condition Star Wars toys that sat undisturbed in original Kenner shipping cartons, largely forgotten, since the 1970s/’80s.
YORK, Pa. – Record-setting prices just kept on coming at Hake’s $3.2 million online auction of pop culture rarities and didn’t stop until the last-minute clash of the titans that determined ownership of the sale’s top lot: a Star Wars Boba Fett “J-slot” rocket-firing prototype action figure. Conceived by Kenner in 1979, the J-slot Boba Fett Version 2 was designed with a J-shape triggering mechanism on its back for firing off rockets, but the toy never made it to the production stage due to safety concerns. On that basis alone, the pre-production archetypes became immediate rarities, but more than four decades of Star Wars mania have catapulted the J-slot prototype to an extraterrestrial level of desirability. The coveted example offered by Hake’s ignited a bidding war that ended at a sky-high $204,435 – a new auction record for any Star Wars action figure.
YORK, Pa. – Pop culture fans reacted with stunned disbelief, then excitement, last November when Hake’s sold a Captain American “hero-prop” shield used by Chris Evans in the 2019 film Avengers: Endgame. The pristine star-emblazoned shield commanded $259,540, the highest price ever paid at auction for a Marvel movie prop and the top price recorded in any sale of Hake’s record-setting $10 million year. However, America’s oldest collectibles auction house is not one to rest on its laurels, as the jaw-dropping lineup just announced for their March 15-16 auction clearly shows.