One of the holy grails of Star Wars Action Figure collecting is headed to auction. As the tale goes, Kenner launched a mail away promotion in late 1978, advertised on their current round of Star Wars figures, featuring the thus far unseen Boba Fett character; the character first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back movie and comics in 1981 (see "Boba Fett"). The promotion had originally intended to send out a special rocket-firing Boba Fett figure to kids in exchange for 4 figure UPCs.
However, Kenner quickly cancelled the rocket-firing version in mid-promotion (circa early 1979) as their Product Reliability unit decided that the missile on Boba Fett's back posed a choking hazard for children. Consumers who sent in their UPCs for the figure received a letter of apology and a replacement Boba Fett figure instead. Thus, the allure of the cancelled, ultra rare rocket-firing Boba Fett prototypes began for collectors.
The prototype offered up at this auction is an L-Slot prototype, which is one of the very early versions of this figure. The L-Slot refers to the firing mechanism on the back of the figure, which in later versions have a J-Slot as plastic tab was added as a safety lock mechanism. This is one of a handful of the prototypes that are hand-painted with an alternate paint scheme, and the highest graded example known to exist at a AFA 80 NM (Certificate of Authenticity provided by Collectible Investment Brokerage).
In 2021, an AFA 60 Boba Fett prototype figure in the standard paint scheme sold for $525,000 at a private sale. This figure, in pre-bidding, has been bid up to $187,500 (with Buyer's Premium).
Recently, a screen-matched Star Wars X-Wing starfighter prop sold for $3.1 million (see "'Star Wars' X-Wing Starfighter Prop").
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