1. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the modern POTF2 Star Wars line, and the 40th anniversary of the end of the original vintage line.

Over the past few years, people have started referring to this POTF2 line (and subsequent lines) as "vintage" or "modern vintage," which can be confusing to some.

It gets confusing to some with the 1995 line also labeled on the card also as "The Power of the Force," just like the 1985 line.

"Hey, I just bought a carded Power of the Force R2-D2 for $5 at a yard sale!"

If you had to set collecting naming standards for the 1995+ Star Wars line, what would you call these lines? "Modern vintage," "Nouveau vintage," or what?
--Chris

If someone writes "vintage" and doesn't mean something that was marketed as "Vintage" by Hasbro, or isn't actual old-school first-generation product, I'm just going to roll my eyes. But language changes, and there are all kinds of neologisms that I don't use because they were not in use in my circles. Take the last 17." I never heard this in the 1980s or 1990s - but fans lumped Paploo and Lumat (somewhat common when and where I grew up) with the original 1985 The Power of the Force figures for some reason, despite their coming on Return of the Jedi cardbacks too. So I recommend people don't use "vintage" unless it's actually from 1978-1985, or one of Hasbro's lines that use "vintage" as part of the line name. That would include from multiple waves off and on from 2004 to 2025, with a gap between 2013-2017.

It is my hope that fans are as specific as possible when selling their toys, describing their finds, or asking questions. Thankfully most people communicate with pictures on their phones, so when someone says "what are my vintage toys worth?" you can quickly see that they aren't what most fans would consider "vintage." Can you correct them? Sure, you can try, they generally don't listen. If someone has a 2003 "Vintage" Ephant Mon, I'll just assume they want to waste character space on eBay's rather limited title field.

I consider everything from 1995-2025 to be "current" because it's all been one big evolving line that has kept going, and the first-gen stuff really is a different era. There was a 10-year-gap between the original Kenner era and the revival, but the "revival" era never really got its own name. I know some fans will argue lumping in a 1995 figure with a 2025 figure is ridiculous - and I admit, it kind of is - but this is why trying to define things just makes an opportunity for all of us to scream at each other. Sure, the branding changed up, but the same thing happened in 1980, 1983, and 1985 - and those are now, more or less, part of one big family of toys, too.

"Modern vintage" is most likely The Vintage Collection to most people, so I hope people don't worry so much about nomenclature and hopefully just include a year and whatever the generally accepted fan jargon may be (POTF2, OTC, what appears on the package, etc.) is included when they make a post online. I also recommend largely not interacting with people, as this sort of thing becomes much less of a problem when you're not put in a place to be pedantic, either annoying people who think you're a jerk for caring or by being annoyed by such things.

Ad: Get New Star Wars Pre-Orders at Entertainment Earth! Get Free USA Shipping on Orders $79+

 

2. Trips to Walmart and Target stores over the past year showed a surprising trend.

Figures that 5 years ago I thought would never be pegwarmers have been hanging around for well over a year.

I've seen multiple Black Series Vaders and The Mandalorian, as well as their TVC counterparts, gathering dust. Pegs full, all look in great shape.

Do you think this signals that more people now are buying their figures online, rather than chasing them down in stores?

Or were these figures overproduced, overpriced to start, or have folks cooled to the hobby?

Or maybe all of the above?
--T

It's complicated. But there's a lot going on and it's not just one thing like pricing, although pricing may be part of it.

The Black Series 6-inch Darth Vader and The Mandalorian figures you're seeing (along with specific Spider-Man, Iron Man, Optimus Prime, and Bumblebee figures) were developed with the entire goal of "this needs to be on-shelf so people who aren't hardcore collectors can get the important characters." Hasbro has been really bad about keeping the kinds of characters a new fan might want in assortments - so they started shipping some of them in full cases. If a Walmart gets a box of 8 Darth Vaders, or 2 cases, that's 16 of the same figure in the same neighborhood. By design, those figures should sit around for a few weeks (or even a couple of months) before replenishment, which would be more of that very same figure. Depending on how your store is at selling and restocking, it's difficult to tell if you're seeing the same figure for six months, or if those figures sold and were replaced. As long as they're selling, the figures being capable for the casuals to buy is the goal. If they go on clearance, there may be a problem - but most fans are probably going to want Darth Vader and/or Mando if they're new to this hobby.

As to The Vintage Collection, I'm not finding unsold Vaders or Mandos in my area. But we do have 7-15 Lando Calrissian figures from a few years ago in many stores. The funny thing is I don't think I remember them being here last year - so this is a bigger problem, as those Vader and Mando figures were their own SKUs, not sold (or tracked) in assortments. Once you have 2 cases of unsold figures from an assortment sitting around, generally the store will not order more of that assortment until they run low - and they're not running low. If your stores have Vintage Darth Vader figures sitting, I'm surprised - but for whatever reason Lando is sitting/reappearing, and anybody from The Acolyte and re-remakes of Disney+ characters have proven less popular in my neck of the woods - but the latter still sells eventually..

While it's sensible for you or me to go online and look up things about toys that exist (or that we want to see if they exist), a lot of customers won't do that. With Hot Wheels, I usually just go through the pegs and see if I like anything - it's rare that I will look online for a specific car just to see if it exists, and rarer that I will order it online due to the shipping on $1.25 car being more trouble than it's worth to me. My first experience with a toy line is rarely ordering online - either someone is going to give me a gift, or it's an impulse purchase, or some other sort of freebie.

As to pricing, I think people will pay the SRP if they think it's worth it - or more importantly, if they want it and don't already have it. If Hasbro makes a character you want for $16.99 and don't already own, I suspect you'll grit your teeth and buy it. If I walked into a store tomorrow and saw a $16.99 Vlix, I'd buy two. If we got more The Retro Collection Cantina aliens that we never saw before at $3-$5 higher, I'd buy at least one or two (or more) of each. But at this point there's nothing you can do to get me to shell out $25 for a The Black Series trooper repaint from a video game. That's my specific taste - if Hasbro can make something from the time period of 1977-1990, Star Tours or Return of the Jedi or The Ewok Adventure or Marvel's Star Wars comics or The Star Wars Holiday Special - I'm interested! But since the price increases, "classic" character figures tend to be new versions (or direct rereleases) of figures we already had a crack at purchasing. I am not always excited to rebuy those. I want something new in each format, and Hasbro has to walk the tightrope of "new stuff for long-haul fans" and "recognizable characters that won't alienate the normies." I suspect that the new stuff from current-gen video games and Disney+ shows is not appealing to a wide enough audience when compared to movies seen by enough people to generate hundreds of millions of dollars at the international box office, but I also don't know what kind of conversations Disney has to help promote their other business ventures. Toys are a good ad for movies and television - it would be great to have more of them on-shelf with these big media events.

Become a Patron!

Special thanks to our generous Patreon patrons, especially: JT, Jared, Bobb, Christopher, Daniel, Dan, Tim, Jayson, Matthew, Michael, Robert, Stephen, Todd DrReiCow, Eddie, Jeremy, Mario, and Todd! Thanks for helping us keep the servers on!

FIN

Skeleton Crew ended this week, and I'd say without spoiling much that you can't spoil much. It was a fun finale with cool action scenes, but when you have what amounts to a 7-day bathroom break between episodes you have a lot of time to think about and predict what happens. I loved seeing new kinds of action scenes - pirates gonna pirate - and I'm really curious how I'm going to feel about it later. With season two being an unknown quantity, that will probably also color the show as time goes on. I don't think Ahsoka will benefit from what looks to be a three-or-more-year-gap between seasons.

I also rewatched all of Obi-Wan Kenobi over the last two weeks, and it was better than I remembered. The show seems better as one big (multi-day) viewing, rather than something spread over a couple of months. Conversely The Mandalorian strikes me as a really good weekly adventure. Getting to watch multiple episodes in a week (if you want) helps hide it when you watch an episode and not much has really happened - rather than ruminate on it, you just watch the next episode. And as long as the whole adds up to something better than the sum of the parts, you probably won't be subjected to somebody's hot take on the show before you have a chance to see how it ends... and that someone is sometimes ourselves.

As to what else is going on?

Diamond Comics files for reorganization and owes Hasbro about $1 million. $1 million for a big business isn't a huge amount of money, and with Image Comics leaving Diamond and Boom! going to Penguin Random House. As Diamond was a big part of the comic book shop ecosystem, and employs/has employed some of my favorite people, I hope things wind up as positively as possible for all parties involved.

JoAnn Fabrics seems to be having some hard times. Neither are big parts of my regular routine but I do pop in to both here and there to check a few things out and I know both bring a lot of my friends joy. (No doubt, to the employees, too.) The last Big Lots near me seems to be still winding down as that chain is about to close up shop, while Dollar Tree has opened two more stores very close to my house, both of which are within a mile of 1-2 other locations that seem to be doing fine.

For fans of inside baseball, I'll be headed to New York for Toy Fair 2025 (there was no 2024 event) in about five weeks. Take a look at their floor plan - there are some interesting changes. So far I can't seem to find Playmobil, but Hasbro will be there on the show floor - no more New York Times building! (Granted, maybe they were last time, but I had food poisoning so I missed a lot in 2023.) As always, I'm the most excited to see Super7 and Hasbro due to their support of 3 3/4-inch action figures new and old, plus there are no shortage of surprised at other booths. Handmade by Robots does some nice stuff, Funko still basically owns the character collectible business, NECA and McFarlane Toys never fail to impress, and Nacelle has Star Trek so I'm very curious to see where that goes. I don't feel anybody is really doing much with action toy playsets or vehicles for full-size action figure toys/collectibles. Short of crowdfunds, that's probably going to be the domain of DIY hobbyists for a while. But it should be an interesting year, especially as things build to 2026 (a new movie) and 2027 (the 50th anniversary).

--Adam Pawlus

Got questions? Email me with Q&A in the subject line now! I'll answer your questions as soon as time (or facts) permit.

Social media? Sure. Bluesky | Threads | Twitter | X | Fediverse | Mastodon | Tumblr | Instagram

I'm on Instagram! All Pictures from a GameBoy Camera.