A plastic “Star Wars” action figure that’s fewer than 4 inches high and has peeling paint just fetched $525,000 at auction.
The ultra-rare, 3 and 3/4-inch, rocket-packing Boba Fett figurine is one of only two known to have survived the production line in the 1970s, officials at Heritage Auctions announced this week.
The priceless bounty-hunter action figure was among a collection of “Star Wars” items that brought in a total of $1.66 million at the May 31 auction in Texas, with a second Boba Fett figure, a Skywalker family lightsaber and an early script of the “Adventures of Luke Starkiller” also on the market, garnering more than 1,500 bidders worldwide.
“The rocket-firing Boba Fett action figure long ago became such a mythic icon that people worldwide know about it even if they don’t collect anything at all,” said Heritage Auctions Executive Vice President Joe Maddalena. “We knew this one had a chance to enter the record books, and it was thrilling to see it become the most valuable toy in the world.”
The auctioneers said the buyer wished to remain anonymous.
The pint-sized figurine’s sale price was more than double another Boba Fett toy that sold for $236,000 in 2022.
The price also topped the $302,000 price set in 2010 for a special Barbie doll that came with a 1-carat diamond, Heritage said in a press release.
A different Boba Fett action figure, which was released in 1979 and was still in the original package, sold for just over $84,000 at the May 31 auction.
The pricier figure was a rarity because it was never released for wide distribution, thanks to another science-fiction entertainment franchise — “Battlestar Galactica.”
Kenner, which created the “Star Wars” toys, backed off on releasing the missile-firing Boba Fett after reports that another rocker-shooting “Battlestar Galactica” action figure posed a choking hazard.
“Projectiles were always touchy subjects,” former Kenner engineer Jacob Miles said. “But when Battlestar Galactica had their issues, we immediately just shut it down and destroyed everything.”
The Kenner “Boba Fett” toys were eventually released but with the rocket glued to the figurines’ backs — except for the only known pair of prototypes that were snatched up by company employees and salvaged.
Boba Fett has become one of the more popular fictional figures from the “Star Wars” franchise and was the focus of the television mini-series titled “The Book of Boba Fett.”
In Star Wars, he is the cloned son of bounty hunter Jango Fett, who was beheaded in front of him when he was a child — prompting him to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a feared figure.
With Post wires
