Now this is how you launch a new line.  Darth freakin’ Vader, in a special package!  Are you listening TVC?  VC01 Dengar?  Who’s responsible for that?  We need to know. Whatever, man.  The Thirtieth Anniversary Collection was pretty epic.  It started with this figure/coin album.  The album would be able to hold (most of) the collectible coins which were included with the basic carded figures, as well as a few special figures and exclusives.  Except for the build-a-droid parts in the Legacy collection, these coins were the best collectible pack-ins offered by Hasbro in, like, ever.  IN EVER, DRE!  But while the droid parts were definitely more useful, and gave us a free figure or two in each wave, these coins were the most fun to hunt down.

2007 was my favorite year for Star Wars.  I was a serious hunter.  Several mornings per week I would wake up early, and make a toy run to several Walmarts and a Targets (at opening). If I had time, or if I was off from work, I’d hit a few TRU’s at open as well.  Figures from the Thirtieth Anniversary Collection were worth hunting down.  I loved the figures, the variety, the huge accessories, and, yes, the coins.  I was into the Galactic Hunt as well.  Although it existed for the prior line (The Saga Collection), it was a lot more engaging for TAC. Not only did have the special gold foil packaging, but also the gold coins.  I loved all of it, and I was obsessive about it. 

Prior to Bantha Skull, we were on the forums at Rebelscum.  One of the biggest complaints from fellow collectors was that “scalpers” were always taking all the local inventory.  I proved that this was generally nonsense.  I’m sure that anyone who was a collector in the North Jersey area must have thought there was a fat, unshowered scalper cleaning out the shelves at all the stores.  Nope.  I was thin and I showered.  And I didn’t scalp.  I was just more dedicated to the craft of hunting new figures than they were.  Joke’s on them!  Idiots.

The coin album included with Darth Vader…well, let’s call it what it is.  Darth Vader really just came with the coin album.  It’s a fantastic quad-fold book, covered in a four panel mural that depicts the entire 6 film saga (at the time).  Inside, is a history of collecting, along with slots for the 60 coins that came with the basic figures released in 2007.  There were another 20 un-numbered slots for whatever else you wanted.  But even that didn’t actually hold all the coins that were made available.  In order to do that, you needed 3 of the VTAC special mail away coin boxes.

60 numbered basic coins
12 gold galactic hunt coins
6 movie coins
1 gold EU coin
1 black (shadow) EU coin
6 Vintage TAC coins
1 Vintage TAC mail away coin
1 C-3PO and R2-D2 McQuarrie Concept Celebration IV coin
1 C-3PO and R2-D2 McQuarrie Concept Celebration Europe coin
1 Luke Skywalker McQuarrie Concept Celebration IV coin
1 Luke Skywalker McQuarrie Concept Celebration Europe coin
1 General Grievous Concept coin
1 Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda SDCC coin
1 Celebration IV Commemorative coin
1 Celebration Europe Commemorative coin
1 SDCC Commemorative coin
1 Gold Indiana Jones IV coin

97 total coins.  (98 if you’re a psychopath and you include the Yak Face coin from the Sail Barge figure.)  And I enjoyed tracking down every one of them.  It was a great time to collect. 

As we do a retrospective of the 2007 figures, we hope you enjoy them as much as we did.  In many cases, the figures are still valuable additions to your modern display.

Oh yeah.  Darth Vader is a straight repack of the 2005 ROTS figure.  It was kind of neat at the time, but it’s pretty awful today.  It’s got an action feature, crappy articulation, and…and…it sucks.  To paraphrase Clemenza, “Leave the Vader.  Take the coin album.”