A Review Of Vintage Collection Luke Skywalker Figures On The Secondary Market

I need to start off with a couple of prefaces. First, making definitive takeaways with respect to demand from the secondary market can be specious. The supply side of the equation is typically the bigger driver of secondary market economics. Having said that, a figure has to exit the primary market first for secondary market mechanics to take affect. That's word salad for saying that it has to sell out. The second caveat is that Amazon isn't the best comp. Prices tend to be elevated on the platform. VC151 Luke Skywalker (Yavin) can easily be had for under $20 on Ebay, whereas the current ask on Amazon is $34. I'm using Amazon for two reasons. First, it's the easiest way to effectively thumbnail the theme I'm going for and second, it's the more "general audience" or "casual collector" platform, which I think is important.

As mentioned from the front page lead in, I make it a habit of regularly perusing Amazon looking for Vintage Collection deals. You never know when one of the storefront accounts is going to try to drop stock. I managed to pick up a small squad of the only desirable figure from 2018's wave one, the VC120 - Rebel Soldier (Hoth) figure, for $9, as an example. Unfortunately for my frugality, none of the good deals right now (less than $9) are things I'm interested in buying more of:


Yes, I snuck a new media Retro Collection figure in there. Aint I a stinker? New media "retro" figures are an ode to corporate soullessness, but that's a rant for another day, one which I'm never going to actually write. I'll just continue to pepper other content with passive-aggressive comments on the subject. That's much more my style as is La-Z-Boy bargain hunting, which brings me back to the subject at hand. Like a weak-minded Sandtrooper, I didn't find the droids deals I was looking for, but the prices of Luke figures jumped out. With the exception of VC131 Luke Skywalker (not Jedi Master), the ask for every single one was over MSRP, to include the recent VC264 - Luke Skywalker (Imperial Light Cruiser) which is now up to $25.

I started this article by cautioning about making judgements about demand based on the secondary market. That is why I'm not using the current value of the loathsome VC146 - Luke Skywalker (Crait) figure as an example. Its value is purely driven by the supply side, but when multiple examples across a category stack up, a pattern does emerge. In addition to the four figures in the lead-in image, you have VC175 - Luke Skywalker (Jedi Knight) trading at $60 and the Photo Real repack of VC04 - Luke Skywalker (Bespin) is going for $35. Even the price of that aforementioned repacked and reviled (not) Jedi Master Luke Skywalker is the original MSRP of $13. Luke sells, baby, which begs the question: HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE US WAIT, HASBRO?



Oh, and by the way:

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