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Mark Yeo is a huge Star Wars fan and has a room in his HDB flat set up as a shrine to the movie franchise.
While the 40-year-old lawyer is familiar with the plots and characters of the space fantasy, the room is not decked with vintage posters of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader or Princess Leia. Instead, it is filled with rare action figure toys of the Star Wars original trilogy encased in protective covers.
To date, Yeo told Yahoo Singapore that he has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past 15 years in some of the rarest Star Wars toys that were originally manufactured around the period when “A New Hope”, “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” were released. Most of these toys were made by the now defunct toy maker Kenner.
“Why the vintage line is more collectable than the modern line is at the time when we were kids (during the original trilogy), we would tear the toy packages and play with them. Nothing is found in the original packaging,” Yeo said.
Toys that are kept unopen in boxes are highly prized and these are rare even among the many thousands of Star Wars toys that were sold in the late 1970s to early 1980s.
Pointing to a set of seven figures from “The Empire Strikes Back”, Yeo said he bought it a number of years ago for around $2,800. The Made-in-Canada set may seem like an indulgent buy but it could turn out to be a shrewd investment if he were to sell it.
“I have been offered US$25,000 by a collector recently for the set, which is of the highest grade of its kind in the world,” Yeo revealed.
Many of his other Star Wars toys are valued at much more than Yeo’s initial investments. While most of the items in his collection are licensed products, there are several bootlegged items from countries like Turkey and Hungary that are also worth a bundle due to their rarity.
Another Star Wars toy collector is Adrian Goh, 42, who still has a number of “loose” figures that he bought when he was a kid.
The businessman told Yahoo Singapore that he started collecting vintage toys from the franchise about 20 years ago. Goh collects the so-called mint-on-card single figures, which come with an accompanying card each.
To date, Goh estimated that he has invested around $40,000 in these figures.
He also collects Star Wars posters, comics, movie stills and books.When asked which figures were among the most valuable in his collection, Goh pointed to “The Power of the Force – Anakin Skywalker” figure released in Australia in 1984. The current market value for a mint condition is a cool $8,000 to $10,000. A Boba Fett figure released in the US in 1979 that he owns is valued around $3,000 to $4,000.
For the serious Star Wars toy collectors, particularly for those who watched the original trilogy when they were kids, the hobby is a window to rekindle these memories.
“Star Wars has been a very big influence in my life since I first watched it as a five-year-old kid. It reminded me of my childhood time at Yaohan department store when I saw the toys hanging in the racks so I wanted to own a piece of it (in later years),” Goh said.
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