OK, it's important going into this story to understand that I walked away from the 3 3/4" Hasbro line a long time ago. It had nothing to do with the quality of the collection in any way, especially considering that each year the line was getting 100% better, and was offering figures light years ahead of anything a life-long Star Wars fan could ever imagine. Personally, my interests moved towards Sideshow's 1/6" and 1/4 scale collectibles, and knowing that Dan was always going to be covering the 3 3/4" stuff, I didn't feel too guilty walking away. That all changed when I was shooting Hasbro's 2010 line up at
Toy Fair. What they had on display was spectacular. Absolutely spectacular.
The Clone Wars line was already poking me on the back telling me to buy again, and has become a special part of my collection, all the while reminding me of Kenner's Batman: The Animated Series, which captivated me in 1993 and ushered me into the world of an adult toy collector. But it wasn't The Vintage collection.
The first wave was a perfect assortment. And the internal battle began (and was ultimately lost, as the superior sculpts, paint jobs, and excellently Star Wars packaging won me over). When the line first started appearing at Walmart, the Boba Fett send away stickers and forms were missing. Regardless, knowing Dan would have the Photo Archive up to date, I felt the need to shoot the Canadian packaging for the first wave as soon as I could. The first wave without sticker and form were sold in Walmart, London Drugs, and Walmart (or at least they were in Western Canada). all eleven figures were available for on average $10 CND each.
Toys "R" Us began receiving the figures days later, but their assortment of wave one had both stickers and send away forms. Oddly enough, despite 30 years of Boba Fett, the stickers featured a giant typo. When the US stickers correctly called the bounty hunter premium 'Boba Fett", the Canadian cards were featuring stickers for a send away "Bobba Fett" figure. What was interesting is that both the stickerless/formless and the stickered/ formed figures shared the same date stamp. Especially odd since Canadian cards usually don't have date stamps...
When the second wave of figures hit Canada, I was certain all the packaging hiccups would have been solved, but I couldn't have been more wrong. The second wave hit Walmart first, and surprise, they were without stickers even though they were packed with send away forms! What was even more puzzling, the first wave was shipping to Walmart at the same time without sticker, but now with the send away form! Further more, the Walmarts I visited only seemed to have the Hoth Han and Obi-Wan with foil cards... Neither with stickers, both with send away forms. I'm not entirely certain why I didn't grab the Obi-Wan to shoot, but what can you do... I though I grabbed it, but I guess I didn't.
Of course, the time where the typo was finally corrected came as the second wave began shipping everywhere, and along with it, many more foil cards began surfacing. At the time of this article, not all the foil figures have been found, but at least now all the figures in wave one and two are hitting shelves at Canadian Toys "R" Us and Walmart stores with the corrected sticker and send away form. At this point, the corrected ROTS Darth Vader card hasn't surfaced, but anyone who knows me personally knows why I'm very keen on getting this card back variation and how much time I'm spending looking for it to hit here in Canada...
Puzzlingly still, despite the corrected sticker, all the send away forms we've seen so far feature a graphic error that gives us the Nahdar Vebb in stead of Boba Fett...
Stay tuned for more on the many, many Canadian variations and my uncontrollable confessions and ravings on this amazing collection!
