Vintage 70s-80s Star Wars Cardbacks

[DarthWilder]

Why are these things collectible? Are people displaying their vintage Star Wars figures with opened cardbacks somehow?

I saved all my cardbacks because I liked looking at the character photos and reviewing the lists of available toys from the time. Most of mine still have the plastic bubbles attached because I removed my figures very carefully when I was a kid.

I see now that some of these cardbacks sell for a lot, and I guess I don't understand why anyone would want someone else's opened toy packaging? What are some of the most valuable cardbacks? What sort of things affect the condition and value? Did anyone else here save their cardbacks, and how do you display them?

Please enlighten me!

 

[Sym-Cha]

I don't understand it either, eventhough I did save my cardbacks in a plastic bag yet some have their name pills removed because you could send them in for additional action figures like Boba Fett, Anakin Skywalker, Admiral Ackbar, Nien Nunb and The Emperor or a complete Survival Kit like Hoth back-packs and gasmasks for breathing inside an asteroid

This Yak Face is quite popular with the Tri-Logo distributed in Europe :

I have this card alas with creases and scuffmarks which does affect the value, obviously

Chaïm

 

[DarthWilder]

I never had a Yak Face because it was past my time for playing with Star Wars figures. Interesting that its card back has two figures blacked out.

I still have a Princess Leia MOC within the same Tri-logo packaging. I'd bought it while on a trip to Europe as a teenager, and it's the only figure I never removed from its package.

 

[Psab keel]

Likely for the same reason there are MIB collectors. The packaging is a huge part of the appeal. If it weren't, the Vintage Collection (as well as other Retro style toy lines) wouldn't be such a huge market and those lines dominate now. Back then there was some creativity used on those cards to make them enticing enough for a kid to spend their pocket money, by seeing all the other cool stuff they could collect. They also posed the toys in play scenarios too, something you don't see on modern figure packages because they're catering to adults who display them in a glass case and not marketing these to kids because the adult collectors are keeping the toy market alive.

Nowadays most modern figures come in a nondescript black box, or windowless box, and the back is covered in license/ legal info in ten languages and the tiniest of thumbnails of other products in the line. If at all.

I mean with the advances of action figures these days, the fact that all the toy corporations will revert to a 5 point articulated figure line means people crave returning to their childhoods. I think for many its about reliving the experience of being a kid and a huge part of that is by having the original packaging for their toys.

 

[OzReturner]

It's a memorable part of the experience that often went into the trash. The older the cardback, the more valuable. Usual damage will decrease value. I got all my toys secondhand from thrift stores, so only have 1 cardback, which I don't currently display. It's from a packaged Nikto I found at a Goodwill in probably 1991, then opened in the car on the way home.

 

[Sym-Cha]

From the vintage Kenner line only the cardback of Wicket W. Warrick was lost because I had purchased him during the summer holidays ...
I still have the action figure on display in my living room though.

Those action figures were not yet available in the EU toystores hence they were blacket out on the cardback in those days back in 1983.

Eventhough I only started my collection when I was 15 ... and never actually played with them, my 6 year younger brother once confessed many eons later that he had played with my action figures when I was at school yet he was very careful since he knew that I had custom painted some of them to make them more like the characters seen on screen. At least he had fun actually playing and making his own STAR WARS stories

Chaïm

 

[DarthWilder]

So this looks like a nice way to display your old figures with their original cardbacks...

 

[Captain Dunsel]

This pretty much covers it all…

 

[The 48th Ronin]

I saved all my cardbacks because I liked looking at the character photos and reviewing the lists of available toys from the time.

This is the exact reason that I saved all (or most) of my cardbacks when I was a kid as well - photo reference was rather limited at first, back then, and I knew that it could be a valuable resource.

I hung onto them for over 40 years (along with the figures), and I actually ended up selling all of the cards to a member here on the board a few years back.

...he knew that I had custom painted some of them to make them more like the characters seen on screen.

I did this too, when I was a bit older! I must have started around the time of ESB, and I'm almost positive that the first figure I modified was Boba Fett. Now I regret having done it, since it completely devalued them.

 

[Sym-Cha]

I did this too, when I was a bit older! I must have started around the time of ESB, and I'm almost positive that the first figure I modified was Boba Fett. Now I regret having done it, since it completely devalued them.

Perhaps ... yet I bet the upgrade made them look better I still upgrade the eyes of some action figures when they look to cross-eyed ha, ha, ha!

Chaïm