How much would you pay for a Boba Fett action figure from the 1970s?
Sotheby’s is auctioning the “Star Wars” toy trove of Tomoaki “Nigo” Nagao, a prolific Japanese collector as well as DJ and fashionista behind The Bathing Ape clothing brand. The online auction begins Friday at 10 a.m. ET.
Nigo, a 45-year-old nerd’s nerd, credits the “Star Wars” movies with being a major inspiration in his life — even more than his other fave, “Planet of the Apes.”
His collection, which is divided into 175 lots on the auction block, leans heavily on vintage action figures from the “Star Wars” movies, with an obsessive emphasis on Boba Fett. They’re still in the original packaging, so it’s obvious that Nigo never played with them. Nor did anybody else.
“Letting go of them is sad,” says Nigo in a video on the Sotheby’s site. “But how do I say it? It’s better to pass things on to the next generation, and this new film is opening at just the right time.”
The auction is happening just days before “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” the seventh film in the franchise, opens on December 18.
Nigo’s collection extends into the obscure corners of “Star Wars” nerdity.
– A Luke Skywalker figurine from 1978 with a “double telescoping” lightsaber that broke easily, so it was pulled from production. An unbroken one is on the block for $12,000 to $18,000.
– Cardboard packaging without action figures from 1982 labeled “Revenge of the Jedi.” That was the working name for the third movie, which was eventually scrapped in favor of “Return of the Jedi.
– A 1985 action figure of Yak Face, a character so obscure that if you actually know who it is, you should probably buy him. But he costs $1,000 to $2,000.
The collection includes a variety of helmets from Darth Vader and stormtroopers and of course Boba Fett, which is signed by Jeremy Bulloch. That’s almost like getting it signed by Fett himself, since Bulloch played him in the movies.
The collection also features an assortment of lightsabers of different models, wielded by different Jedi, in different movies. There’s an extra-small model used by Yoda. There are plenty of blasters, too, including the stormtrooper models and the pistol used by Han Solo, which is modeled after a 19 century German handgun called a C96.
