Funny story:

A couple of years back I was hours a way from moving myself from the flat plains of Edmonton, Alberta to the picturesque mountains of Vancouver, British Columbia. After many, many years living in the ‘City Of Champions’ (a name that lost all meaning shortly after the Great One left for Los Angeles –Wayne Gretzky for those who haven’t figured it out) I made some great friends in the Star Wars secondary market.

One of those friends was a man named Leigh, who was the proprietor of a shop called Comic Fever. For more years than I’d care to remember I’d find myself spending hours in his shop. Not only was he the leading source of vintage Star Wars figures in Edmonton, he was an amazingly articulate man. No matter what, he was always able to not only get the coolest toys in world, he was also always fair with the pricing.

Of course fair prices mean nothing when a buyer (myself) is foolish enough to pass up on buying a genuine vinyl cape Jawa for a mere $100 CND or both the incredibly rare ESB vac-sealed General Veers and ‘periscope’ R2-D2 MOMC for $50CND each.

At any rate, the time had come for me to say my final good byes to all the people I knew, and I knew I had to visit his shop that one last time. After chatting it up for a few minutes Leigh did something that is unheard of in secondary market: He let me go through the mystical box ‘o weapons and accessories. Make no mistake, all vintage dealers have these boxes of wonderment, but none would ever want you to know that… After all, who would buy a complete Bespin Luke for his saber if the dealer will sell you the little yellow weapon by itself?

In this box full of dreams I stumbled across a small pile of Star Wars and GI Joe weapons that I need, but more importantly I found the little blue ‘rope’ that was missing from my otherwise complete with box Death Star playset (plastic upright set, not the Palitoy cardboard version). I knew it would be a gamble, but I took it with my little assortment of niceties and headed to the cash register.

Since I’ve never had anything but the highest level of respect for the man, I made sure to point out that it was a very scarce piece and told him I’d pay whatever he wanted for it. To my surprise Leigh said $5 (that’s $5 CND kids…) for the entire lot! It was a magic moment between a buyer and a seller that you only read about in a daily column about Star Wars collectibles on eBay.

Needless to say, I took my little bag of happiness and placed it safely inside my car. With only a few hours left before my time of departure, I knew I had plenty of people to see, so off I went. It took me two days to get to Vancouver –I went with my Mom and she insisted that we stop for the evening in Kamloops, British Columbia. It was at this point that I decide that it was time to admire my little blue Death Star rope. My Holy Grail.

To my dismay, the little bag was nowhere to be found, and to this day has never turned up. So close I was, yet so far away. When I stumbled across the below auction I had to decide if it would do my soul good to buy it, or if I’d feel more fulfilled by sharing my story. Being the narcissist I’m sure I truly am, I opted for the latter, so without further ado…

Vintage Star Wars Death Star rope accesory



Next Time On eBay Today: How I met that guy who played Chekov (sic?) from Star Trek and publicly teased him…


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