My first (mini) loft find in 20 years!

[ScruffyLookingNH]

OK, it's small, but it's almost perfectly formed

I've just been on a bit of a trip to collect this from a lovely old lady who found the remains of her children's SW toys in her loft. Sadly, this is absolutely it; the rest must have gone years ago.

Bit of a cheat as I found it on ebay. No photo and no description save "a few star wars figure, a millennium falcon and another ship". I contacted her, asked for a photo via mobile phone (assuming is was a fleshware problem preventing a photo going up on ebay) and received a photo of these items. Was all ready to stick in a last minute bid (bidding was at about £2.05 late last night) only to find that by this morning ebay has cancelled the sale because of no photo. Again contacted her, told her what I had been prepared to bid and she accepted that price.

I knew the 45 back Palitoy AT-AT Driver had been opened (crying shame as I need one), but it's going to make a nice display piece until I can get a proper one as it'll reseal very nicely. Also, the figure is mint and probably never removed. The real bonus was the DSD who is unplayed with: perfect paint and all stiff limbs. 3 of the 4 are uncracked! The R2 is solid dome and almost perfect (small area of yellow to the plastic below the perfect sticker). Greedo has a very nice, custom black belt! Something has been glued around his waste. Very neat and textured. It can be removed but I quite like it as it is The stormtrooper is positively brown on the back but it a 3 line beauty. I read somewhere leaving them in the sun will reverse this? I thought it's what caused it?

I'm also chuffed with the DC Falcon and DV Tie Fighter. I bought some DCs from a forum member some months back but didn't have either of these. Now I'm up to 6 and only need 3 more (I think) to go (X-Wing, Tie Fighter and Tie Bomber).

 

[Dublinjeff]

:shock: nice find....bidding at £2.05!!

 

[poncho]

Welldone buddy! 8) nice dsd hes a keeper

 

[SublevelStudios]

Good little haul there Simon, nice one mate. Always nice when a hunch pays off like that 8) 8) 8)

Leave the Stormtrooper as is mate, this whole peroxide bleaching thing is something of a sore point at the moment. Just pretend he's a 40 a day kind of trooper

Love the Re-seal, always loved the At At Driver card, really bold image and that Palitoy logo is the icing on the cake.

As for the die casts, if you find an X-wing without the canopy (which is common) let me know because I have a spare one you can have

 

[ScruffyLookingNH]

Good little haul there Simon, nice one mate. Always nice when a hunch pays off like that 8) 8) 8)

Leave the Stormtrooper as is mate, this whole peroxide bleaching thing is something of a sore point at the moment. Just pretend he's a 40 a day kind of trooper

Love the Re-seal, always loved the At At Driver card, really bold image and that Palitoy logo is the icing on the cake.

As for the die casts, if you find an X-wing without the canopy (which is common) let me know because I have a spare one you can have

Ha ha! More like 80 a day and on an iron lung! But yes, I agree, it's a bit of a touchy subject. I think I'll leave him as he is. My misses reckons he looks better brown that white, anyway :shock: Thanks for the offer of the canopy, Mark, that's awesome. I'll keep my eyes peeled for a suitable fixer-upper

 

[Grant_C]

BAM!

 

[Mr-shifter]

Nice find Simon.

Oh, there are 11 die cast

X wing
Tie
Dv tie
Landspeeder
Falcon
Tie bomber
Snow speeder
Slave 1
Twin pod cloud car
Star destroyer
Y wing

 

[Cocobean]

Great find some nice items there ds droid looks nice

 

[theforceuk]

Very nice! Love the AT-AT Driver. :shock:

 

[Cazza]

Excellent find Simon 8) Very rewarding to get hold of something like this

 

[ScruffyLookingNH]

Nice find Simon.

Oh, there are 11 die cast

X wing
Tie
Dv tie
Landspeeder
Falcon
Tie bomber
Snow speeder
Slave 1
Twin pod cloud car
Star destroyer
Y wing

Doh. Forgot I have the CC and forgot all about Slave I!

 

[jedisearcher]

Nice find!

 

[lejackal]

Lovely little lot there Simon

 

[x-pack]

Excellent haul. Love the DV Tie

 

[Lom]

Very nice - lovely when this happens.

 

[ScruffyLookingNH]

Cheers guys.

As if one in a weekend wasn't enough, I had another today! This one was much closer to home and not as impressive but meant a lot more. As I've said before, I collected and traded my way through University in the mid 90s. As far as I knew, I had nothing at all left. I unearthed my old, small, wooden trunk today whilst having a clear out and trying to find my sole remaining SW toy from childhood: The decapitated head of Luke X-Wing(!). I thought it was in this trunk which I hadn't opened for more than a decade. Sadly not. However, what was in there was something I must have picked up in the 90s in a job lot. What's really cool is I wanted these so much I had put them on my Secret Santa list! OK, so one is used, but the other three are good:

I'm sure I thought I was the only person in the world to think of this name at the time. From the dialing code this must have been in 1996, just glad the big, well known company of the same name in California didn't know about me running around NW England with their name on my cards . I had almost finished up by then and this was a professional as I got:

And finally, this was as far as I got in terms of recording what I'd bought and sold. I tried to keep track of what I have spent on my collection this time and I got no further this time, either:

 

[lejackal]

Nice one Simon, great bit of personal history for you!

 

[palitoyjunky]

Nice bit of paper work there Simon, always love a bit of recorded history 8)

Yeh real shame that 45a AT-AT Driver was opened as he is v tough to find sealed :!:

 

[sith-smith]

That's a great score.

The AT AT driver is a great looking card 8)

 

[ScruffyLookingNH]

I headed back to my loft today. I'm desperate to find my Luke X-WIng head. And I wasn't sure if I didn't still have a folder full of vehicle instructions from my trading days.

I failed to find either.

BUT......I did something else I didn't know I even had! Yes, this is it; the only piece of vintage Star Wars I own from my childhood collection! But first I'll subject you to some tat that I found; what remains of my mid 90s purchases of the modern stuff:

Are you telling me a tube of Cadbury's chocolate bars a mere 17 years past their sell by dates aren't worth a fortune now??? They've got Star Wars all over them! I'm retiring on these babies :wink: And if anyone needs some sticker for the '96 Pannini sticker album, let me know, I have a pile of swaps! The Toys r Us fliers are probably the coolest things I came across in terms of modern, and the cheapest! The Collectible Card Game must have cost me hundreds to complete. And now it's worth tens. I also have a pile of swaps for those too, if required.

Next up was the best find. Not only is it the last item from my childhood figure collection that I own (given up on Luke X-Wing's head ) but I also found a load of great bits of paperwork from my trading days in the 90s and from my collecting in the early 2000s. And I do apologise for the coin offer stickers. I have no idea how I came about them. I'm pretty sure they weren't from my trading days. I know I had a stack of cardbacks in the 2000s and I have a feeling I must have peeled a few off somehow. Different times, I guess? My last piece of vintage is contained in this photo....can you guess what it is?

A cool piece is Bantha Tracks #34. It's a very thin record of sound effect from the OT

Give up? OK, it's the 4-LOM (that's what it said on the card so that's what I call him) chestplate. I'm going to get him his very own GW acrylic case and an acrylic stand. He deserves it. The two destroyed ESB trading cards were also mine as a kid as is the Wicket rubber figure. I guess it's meant to be an eraser? Doesn't look like it could do much erasing, seems like it's made out of two hard a rubber:

Finally, another unexpected find. I had forgotten I owned this. It's something of a mystery. From what I can figure out it's the 8mm, silent, colour version of ANH. The thing is, the case is like nothing I've seen, the reel looks too modern and there's 800ft of film on the reel when they only did 200 and 400ft versions (8 mins and 17 mins, I believe). I think what may have happened is that this has been spliced with another film and put on this larger reel. I don't have an 8mm projector so I can't play it and I'm very unwilling to unwind 400ft of film to find out what the film after it is. Going to buy one on ebay and see what transpires. Can always flog the projector again after