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Hasbro:  It’s Bantha Skull’s Turn To Spitball A Sail Barge Incentive

Posted by Chris on 03/02/18 at 03:20 PM Category: HasLab
Hasbro, if you're reading this let me offer this preface: I work in an industry that gets lots of "you should do this" and "you should to that" suggestions from people outside the industry. It's often good or valid input, but sometimes that person doesn't know the effort, practicality, or even legality of what they're suggesting. In short, I can empathize with someone who gets told how to do their job by people who don't do that job. That is not the intent of this. We think we have a wizard idea that will reignite the Sail Barge buzz as if it were new again, and from this mile high view it wouldn't require much additional effort or cost. It's just a slip of paper for now.

Yak Face bi-linqual


For the TL;DR crowd, we'll cut right to the chase and bullet point this hypothetical proposal.

  • Announce that the Sail Barge will contain mail-in redemption form for a carded variation of the upcoming Vintage Collection Yak Face figure
  • The customer would still have to pay for the figure, as with the previous mail-away figures (i.e. it can be priced to pay for itself)
  • The redemption form would be exclusive to backers of the Sail Barge
  • The carded variation would be a replica of the bi-lingual Canadian POTF '85 card, which was the only way the vintage Yak Face was manufactured for sale in North America
  • A retconned US or International POTF '85 Yak Face card could still be produced for other purposes, but backing the Sail Barge would be the only way to get this exact vintage Kenner POTF '85 Canadian card


Yak Face carded
Behold, the granddaddy of them all for carded Star Wars movie figures
And now for the more detailed explanation for those blessed with abnormal attention spans. Most of you know that the vintage Kenner Yak Face figure is legendary. I myself didn't even know of its existence until the early nineties. Up until that point, I thought the vintage Kenner 12" IG-88 was the holy grail. Then a friend of mine informed me that he saw a classified ad in the back of a hobby newspaper offering three IG-88's for a carded Yak Face. I never heard of Yak Face to that point. After mentally ensuring that I wasn't falling for a "henway" joke, I timidly asked, "What's a Yak Face?"

In the internet age where the concept of hobby newspapers seems made up, every collector knows the story of this legendary figure, but it's still difficult to separate the apocrypha from the actual history. What is known is that the Yak Face figure went into production just before Kenner pulled the plug on Star Wars. The figure was released overseas on the the unholy abomination known as the Trilogo card. That version was released without the vibrostaff. The North American version was to be released on the "Power of the Force" card, but an American version was never produced. It was only carded on a bilingual Canadian card, and was also reportedly the only figure ever produced on this bilingual card. It's legendary...squared!

What's unknown is if that Canadian POTF '85 Yak Face was ever sold in stores. Some reports say Kenner destroyed the production run after the plug was pulled on Star Wars. Other reports say people claimed to find them on the shelves of Canadian retailers. With respect to those claims, keep this in mind: The known attendance of the game in which Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points on March 2nd, 1962 is Hershey, PA is 4,124. To date, 1.8 million people have claimed to have been at that game. People like to say things.

Regardless of the validity of those claims, that POTF '85 Yak Face exists and packaged samples have made it to the secondary market. An AFA 85 graded sample recently sold for the low low price of $13,500. Here is the real kicker, due to a number of factors, which presumably include packaging regulations, Hasbro has repeatedly said that a replica of that Canadian POTF '85 card could never be sold at modern retail. The only way collectors would be able to get it would be via a mail-away figure. We think making it exclusive to this Sail Barge would a huge win and would spike a lot of interest. It would allow collectors who have no interest in the figure to sell it as a way to offset the costs of the Sail Barge. The redemption form alone would fetch a pretty penny. (Remember when completed redemption forms for the George Lucas Stormtrooper figure were selling for over $50?) This could really kick-start some new interest in the campaign, and from our uninformed perspective, would require little upfront effort (just a piece of paper). Even if inserting a physical redemption form into the Sail Barge shipment is a deal breaker for some reason, then the receipt itself could double as a redemption form. Even with no physical addition to the existing package, simply announcing that the figure would be available for exclusive purchase by Sail Barge buyers would be enough.

You might be asking how many people would truly be interested in a reproduction of such an esoteric piece of vintage Kenner Star Wars history. Probably the same amount of people who would consider buying a Sail Barge.




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