Woolworths Special Buy 8 Star Wars Figures for 99p Pack Research Findings

[theforceuk]

I've tried to remember which figures I got in my 8 pack and I'm pretty sure it was:

Luke Farmboy. (without saber)
Greedo
R5-D4
Hoth Rebel Soldier
Han Bespin
Luke X-Wing
Jawa
Hoth Rebel Commander

I can't be 100% sure but at least 6 of these came in it I reckon.

 

[David Tree]

It was end half of 85, people keep thinking in the wrong context with respect to these items, it wasn't Star Wars being cleared, it was part of a large clearance toysale that featured multiple product lines, including Mattel, but was made up with the majority of discontinued Palitoy lines. Large volumes of Palitoy product were shifted to various retailers in an effort to recoup money, clear space due to storage shut down - or in some awesome stories, out the back door for as much as you could fill a van and money not going through the books.
The bundle packs of figures were part of that to Woolworths, but were not the only unpackaged/ incomplete/ non-retail product to be sold through that toy sale, which included window boxed Action Force vehicles with and without figures. Star Wars was dead in the water at toy retail by this point, with Transformers and Masters Of The Universe leading the boys action figure market at this point.
Co-op was another of the mainstream retailers that also ended up a fair amount too.

 

[edd_jedi]

The bundle packs of figures were part of that to Woolworths, but were not the only unpackaged/ incomplete/ non-retail product to be sold through that toy sale, which included window boxed Action Force vehicles with and without figures..

Did the other toy lines have the same white circular special price stickers as the figure and vehicle etc Star Wars items?

 

[theforceuk]

I don't reckon Woolworths 8 packs were out in 1985, Trilogo and POTF figures were still out then. I got a boxed AT-AT Christmas 1985 and so did most of my friends, also got ROTJ carded figures after that. I did live in Cornwall though so probably about right as we seemed to be 12 months behind the rest of the country in most things.

 

[geoffbroccoli]

Thanks guys, I'm pretty certain it can't have been '85 as I know I wasn't collecting then (based on school year, family stuff at the time etc) so '86 sounds good, although I know it was August when I bought mine, as it was the summer holidays, so if they only came out around Christmas time it might have been 87...

Funny, the one figure I remember getting (and still have) is my brown hair Luke Skywalker original, also without sabre..

 

[Frunkstar]

It's crazy that these were just sitting around on clearance shelves for 99p. 99p for eight figures! Talk about trying to shift stock of a dying toy line. Think what they're worth now. Also that's only equivalent to £2.85 now. Now they want £15 for a ****** modern 2 pack.

I've got a question for the multipack baggie experts.. Frank 8) Were the figures packed in these completely random character combinations or are there multiples of known combinations?? Just curious as to whether they thought - we must have some goodies, baddies, couple of major characters etc.

Delboy is a better person to ask about this as sadly I never did see them back in day having long since lost interest in the figures for fast bikes & fast women by then :lol: on retrospect rather foolish :lol: :lol:

But from my talks with Del & other collectors & what I have seen in the only 4 known still sealed examples (excludes made in reading examples - still chuckling about that BTW Edd), they were totally random, literally thrown together with whatever they had on hand to stuff them with, most were loose figures, I think most had some accessories but they often did not even match the figures in the pack, one of mine is an ideal example of this as it has a luke & a bed saber in but neither of the figures in the bag, some also had baggies in them like mine have, I have seen several sales via vectis whith lots of loose & bagged figures accompanied by the open woolies baggie, so I would assume there were more of these put out with bagged figures than folks would seem to think, as most I have seen open with figures have had baggies with them, which if you consider the figure were sent in shipping cases all bagged would make perfect sense - CAB to unpack them considering the price, just lob em in & slap a sticker on :lol:

I do know the majority of figures were either ROTJ era figures or ones that were still popular & being carded on ROTJ MOC's like stormies/vader/fett etc etc which again would make sense.

I do remember a conversation some years back with Del about how he would open the baggies up in the bins to swap figure to get a better combination of figures & he said he does remember a trip to town when the bin was overflowing with Gamorrean guards in them, like 3 of 4 in a single 8 pack, so it really would seen pretty dam random.

 

[theforceuk]

Thanks guys, I'm pretty certain it can't have been '85 as I know I wasn't collecting then (based on school year, family stuff at the time etc) so '86 sounds good, although I know it was August when I bought mine, as it was the summer holidays, so if they only came out around Christmas time it might have been 87...

Funny, the one figure I remember getting (and still have) is my brown hair Luke Skywalker original, also without sabre..

Yes Christmas '86 pretty much is 1987 and it was definetly Christmas 1986 that I got mine 100% sure. It's a good bet that they were released December 1986.

 

[Robstyley]

Thanks Frank(and Dave and others), I suspected as much, they were hardly going to start sorting them when putting them out at that price. Very interesting thread.

 

[fuzzybuzzytoys]

Interesting photo. Taken June 2001....Jeff Glanville's loft find. I have known of this photo's existence for some time and this is the first opportunity I have had to see the evidence for myself.

 

[poncho]

Interesting photo. Taken June 2001....Jeff Glanville's loft find. I have known of this photo's existence for some time and this is the first opportunity I have had to see the evidence for myself.

woah.....

 

[Mr-shifter]

Interesting photo. Taken June 2001....Jeff Glanville's loft find. I have known of this photo's existence for some time and this is the first opportunity I have had to see the evidence for myself.

Call me old skeptical sally but.......

Is there any proof, ie a negative with a date, a digital camera date stamp or an origional photo with a date printed on it to prove that the photo was taken in 2001.......

 

[laurencedyer]

Interesting photo. Taken June 2001....Jeff Glanville's loft find. I have known of this photo's existence for some time and this is the first opportunity I have had to see the evidence for myself.

This is actually a rather impressive image.
A few questions come to mind though.
Was this image taken by Jeff at the time of the find, Presumably by the camera on his phone?
If not, why is it printed on a piece of paper? Surely this would have been printed by a photographers back then?

 

[spoons]

My mate was bootlegging cds for me with home printed inserts back in 1999, so no problem with home printing for the photo.

Couldn't comment on the genuineness of the subject - impressive none the less

 

[poncho]

Interesting photo. Taken June 2001....Jeff Glanville's loft find. I have known of this photo's existence for some time and this is the first opportunity I have had to see the evidence for myself.

This is actually a rather impressive image.
A few questions come to mind though.
Was this image taken by Jeff at the time of the find, Presumably by the camera on his phone?
If not, why is it printed on a piece of paper? Surely this would have been printed by a photographers back then?

thats been put onto word document enlarged by looks of and printed

 

[fuzzybuzzytoys]

The photograph was taken from an old works camera which Jeff used for surveys. This is a copy which was located in Jeff's paperwork (there's tons of papers)

The find was in a bungalow in Arboufield nr Reading which was a probate. The loft was to be cleared for woodworm treatment. Everything in it belonged to an old lady who had died. Jeff mentioned to the new owner about various items up there and was given everything or it was to be dumped

Please feel free to use the image across any forums and FB groups for discussion.

 

[Ruby2511]

Interesting photo. Taken June 2001....Jeff Glanville's loft find. I have known of this photo's existence for some time and this is the first opportunity I have had to see the evidence for myself.

Holy s#$t I am drooling :lol:

Thanks for sharing 8)

 

[edd_jedi]

Interesting photo Jamie, thanks for sharing. Assuming it can be proven that the photo was taken in 2001, it may prove:

• The suspect packs have existed for 17 years

What it doesn't prove:

• The packs are genuine
• The packs existed in 1986 when genuine ones were sold at retail (11 years before this photo may have been taken)
• The packs have since been sold by or traced back to anybody but Jeff
• The suspect font stickers have been found in any childhood collections
• The suspect font stickers have been found attached to any other type of known authentic 'special offer' toy eg Mini Rigs
• Jeff didn't make them

It's a start, but nothing more.

 

[fuzzybuzzytoys]

Trying to find evidence of where suspect items originated from although I already suspect I am massively wasting my time whatever the outcome.

Jeff always maintained these were a loft find. Sad to see this picture so quickly dismissed. I guess that's the state of the hobby right now and why I am so turned off by it. I will attempt to dig through Jeff's paperwork to find out more information about these and other items. I just hope that these items have not been destroyed by current opinion.

 

[spoons]

Trying to find evidence of where suspect items originated from. Jeff always maintained these were a loft find. Sad to see this picture so quickly dismissed. I guess that's the state of the hobby right now and why I am so turned off by it. I will attempt to dig through Jeff's paperwork to find out more information about these and other items. I just hope that these items have not been destroyed by current opinion.

Sad indeed Jamie.

Unfortunately it seems pretty clear that Jeff has been party to if not making fake baggies for a long time, and unfortunately anything that is genuine is going to be tarred with the same brush

I wouldn't touch these with a barge pole

 

[Mr-shifter]

Trying to find evidence of where suspect items originated from although I already suspect I am massively wasting my time whatever the outcome.

Jeff always maintained these were a loft find. Sad to see this picture so quickly dismissed. I guess that's the state of the hobby right now and why I am so turned off by it. I will attempt to dig through Jeff's paperwork to find out more information about these and other items. I just hope that these items have not been destroyed by current opinion.

Just a point. Subtle, but pertinent maybe imo.

It is not solely opinion that Jeff has been selling bent goods. 8 packs aside, you understand people's scepticism right? He's admitted a large percentage of his baggies are fake. To the point he has *allegedly* refunded people and taken them out of their baggies.

I'm perhaps going to be a little blunt now, and please don't take this as a sleight on you. Laurence's write up is comprehensive. On the flip side, you have shown us a picture. One picture, printed on a bit of paper.

Hopefully, you understand why people are still asking the question right?

 

[edd_jedi]

You're not wasting your time Jamie, I and I'm sure everyone else here is completely open to new evidence supporting that these packs are real. I would genuinely welcome it, I don't like seeing people get ripped off or lose money.

But you need to apply some logic here - with all the evidence Laurence has provided, a photo of one box of suspect packs from 1999 does not prove they are genuine. Many collectors saw Toy Toni's fake MOCs at toy shows in the 90s, that doesn't make those real. I was making (bad) replica MOCs myself in the mid 90s, fakes have been around for decades. So your photo is no silver bullet.

See my list above - show us a photo of packs with the suspect font in Woolworths stores in the 80s, or a suspect font sticker on a vehicle/mini rig, or even one from a childhood collection, that would help prove they are genuine.

 

[momike]

I know frank and Jeff were at one time friendly and as documented by frank exchanged a lot of info with each other regarding baggies etc via email......that is one hell of a find and if he has had them since 2001 surly he would of mentioned that to frank in the past?

It just seems really convenient to me if I'm being honest, what's the odds of finding a haul like that and the person who discovered them happens to be someone knee deep in moody collectibles

 

[fuzzybuzzytoys]

I know frank and Jeff were at one time friendly and as documented by frank exchanged a lot of info with each other regarding baggies etc via email......that is one hell of a find and if he has had them since 2001 surly he would of mentioned that to frank in the past?

He did. Discussed many times. Just requested documentation regarding the communication.

 

[Joe]

Well done Laurence, a very conclusive and damning thread. You've given up your own time to provide incredible research that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that these fakes are in circulation, have been for quite some time and sadly the majority come from the same source.

I wish I could say I was surprised to read this but when I heard there were rumours about the 8 packs too I knew it wouldn't be long before it was proven.

10/10 for your efforts and for continuing to look out for the community. The hobby in 2018 is a completely different beast to what it once was, seems as time goes on it becomes less and less about sticking together, looking out for each other and working out who the bad guys are and more about who can show off the most or spend the most money. Sadly, the latter is the very reason why some people now have collections full of fakes

 

[fuzzybuzzytoys]

More info just arrived. This is a pack from the box pictured previously (you can se it in the top left corner). The pack was sold to Kevin Bleso about 5 years ago (and graded)

What is really interesting is the receipt which is sealed in the pack. You can clearly see the postcode NW1 6JL which, when googled, is an address which belonged to the Woolworths Group.

 

[edd_jedi]

Why would there be a Woolworths receipt in packs that were bagged at the Palitoy Factory? It is widely accepted that these special offer items (including vehicles, play sets etc) were not exclusive to Woolworths.

 

[fuzzybuzzytoys]

Why would there be a Woolworths receipt in packs that were bagged at the Palitoy Factory?

Is there anyway of reaching out to Kevin to see clearer pics of the item?

 

[fuzzybuzzytoys]

Pics

 

[fuzzybuzzytoys]

Zoom

 

[fuzzybuzzytoys]

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