Bantha Skull recently held a week long celebration for the Vintage Collection Jabba's Court Denizens. Both the reviews and the comments largely expressed the same sentiments: for the hardcore collector community this was a dream come true. Unfortunately, that dream comes with a price. It's hard to imagine that we'll see another set like this. From what we can observe, this set did not perform well, at least not well enough to encourage attempts at more tertiary characters.
But It Sold Out
The stock status of Jabba's Court Denizens keeps toggling between in-stock and sold out. At the time of this writing, it's actually in-stock HERE. The fact that it appears to be very close to a sell-through seems to have given the community a false sense of confidence. Not all sell outs are equal. Selling out immediately is a great sign of success. Taking almost a year to sell out is a disappointment. The reason being is that selling out quickly gives manufacturers confidence to place an order with the factory for a second run, which is where the return on investment really kicks in. When things take forever to sell through, as this 4-pack has done, it means only the initial minimum production run has sold. That doesn't mean it's a failure (i.e. there will be no Ollie's dump), but it's also not a success. It's more a waste of time, and you know what they say in business: time is money.
But The Price
I've seen some say that the reason for passing on this set is the price per figure. If you consider the repacked Ree-Yees a "throw away", the cost for the three desirable figures comes to $24 each. That's steep for sure, but I've repeatedly cautioned the community that if you want esoteric characters, you have to expect to pay more. In fact, the hypothetical price point I would throw out was $25. Brick and mortar has absolutely no appetite for deep cut characters. The fact that this set was a Pulse exclusive also probably indicates that Fan Channel had no interest either. These type of figures have a much smaller production run than Darth Vader or Boba Fett. Smaller production runs come with a higher cost. The fact that this set doesn't appear to be a home run for Hasbro also likely kills the prospect of HasLab figure packs where the cost per figure would be at least as high.
Wrap It Up Already
We're back to the start. I'm thrilled that we have this set, but also sad that I don't think we'll see another one anytime soon because I suspect it didn't perform particularly well. I have a feeling that those who passed on this set will grow to regret it. In fact, if TVC 2.0 is going to have a Yak Face type of grail twenty years from now, it will come from this set.