Prices Of TVC 1.0 Figures Continue To Leave Me Gobsmacked

Posted by Chris on 06/22/23 at 07:05 AM Category: Vintage Collection

https://www.banthaskull.com/images/news/tvc1_auction.jpg

If I did the internet "right" from a monetization standpoint, I wouldn't let you know the final price of the auction above until you clicked next through five ad-laden refreshes where the tension ratchets up each page like that Grover book with the monster on the last page. Since I don't, I'll cut right to the chase. Those ten figures sold for $885 (plus $12.55 shipping):

(click for the full sized image)

An average selling price of $88 might not seem too remarkable for a lot of figures where nine of them have not been re-released in TVC 2.0 (the Phase I Clone Trooper being the lone exception), but it is when you dig a little deeper. Fist off, the cards are not in great condition as is admitted in the auction description. Second, there are only three TVC 1.0 stand outs in the lot and those are VC44 - Luke Skywalker (Dagobah Landing), VC43 - Commander Gree, and VC108 - Jar Jar Binks (with a very bent corner). Then there are two more in the decent category which are VC39 - Luke Skywalker (Death Star Escape), and VC46 - AT-RT Driver.

But what's remarkable is the balance of the figures in the auction, and if you collecting during the TVC 1.0 era, you're probably shaking your head. The remaining five figures are either also rans (VC36 - Senate Guard and VC45 - Clone Trooper due to its reissue status) or bonafide TVC 1.0 peg warmers (VC01 - Dengar, VC11 - (Twin Pod) Cloud Car Pilot, and VC51 - Barriss Offee). Dengar and the Cloud Card Pilot glutted store pegs so badly that Hasbro had to send reps out to collect them. Now they fetch a premium. This is why I continue to say that you can't pay too much for a TVC figure. You can only buy too early. If you buy a case that has a figure you don't want, you're not "stuck" with it. You just have to wait out the market until it's worth your while to sell it.

Of course the exception to these rules is the 2018 TVC launch wave. Woof. It may take another decade of ripening before some of those figures fetch even $10 on the secondary market. Finally (spoiler alert), Grover was the monster on the last page.