Jedi Characters on Jedi Cardbacks. Complete!

Just over a month has passed since I completed my Empire set and now I’m back again with my completed Jedi characters on Jedi cardbacks run. I would highly recommend doing this run to anyone who has ran out of ideas for things to do in the hobby. Its relatively inexpensive compared to other aspects of Star Wars collecting, it can be very fulfilling as there are a lot of nice Jedi cards out there and its also a lot of fun

The majority of the set is made up of Kenner 77 backs but there also a few 65 backs and 79 backs along with a couple of Palitoys and Kenner Canada cardbacks. I also added the Rebo band to the pic as I believe they are essential to completing the Jedi set.

Complete set of Jedi Characters on Jedi cardbacks.

There are a few with price sticker damage that I would like to replace at some point but for now I’m going to take a short break from collecting until after the baby is born.

Little Green Men.

I had been collecting figure variants for a few years before I started to take a special interest in Yoda figures. First of all I wanted a Ledy Yoda then I wanted a Yoda on an Empire card and before I knew it I had a character Focus 😀

Start of my Focus 2006

At the start I collected mostly loose Yoda variants and avoided carded, mainly because of the cost but also because I have still heavily into collecting loose variants of other characters.  In June 2007 I was on holidays in Brussells and had decided to visit a comic shop that another collector had told me about where he had seen a few carded Clipper figures for sale. I found the shop and was quite suprised by some of the items that were on offer. Several nice boxed ships, lots of loose figures and about 20 carded figures including a couple of Palitoys and a few sweet Clippers. I found the Yoda in the picture below among the carded figures and made the shop owner an offer on it, took it home and posted an image of it on RS to see if I could gather any info on it.

Canadian 41 Back Yoda with Clipper Wraparound Offer (Green Snake)

The Brussells Yoda redirected my collecting ambitions and for the next few months or so and I become completely obsessed with aquiring carded Yodas from eBay, Forums & Trades.

My next big score came when I parted ways with the vast majority of my Modern collection to my good friend Robbie (Galactables). In exchange for several hundred carded Modern figures he traded me a beauiful AFA85 Yoda on 41B along with a breathtaking AFA90 Yoda on 77A.

Yoda 41B - AFA85

Yoda on 77A - AFA90

I picked up a few more carded examples over the following months including a very nice German 45 back from Toytoni and some amazing Yoda variants on 41D cardback off eBay along with a few other carded and loose  examples from other sources.

Yoda on German 45 Back

41D Variants

Various carded (October 2007).

Loose Variants (November 2007)

Around this time I was having luck picking up nice loose items too and was able to purchase a very nice  Ledy Yoda with Unpainted limbs and shortly after that I was able to pick up an unpainted Ledy Yoda head (see pic below). I also had luck finding a Bright Green, Orange Snake Yoda from a 41D cardback, a very nice Loose European Green Snake Yoda and a strange Grey head Yoda.

Ledy Yoda (Unpainted limbs), Ledy Yoda Head (Unpainted overstock) & Production Ledy Yoda.

Bright Green, Orange Snake Yoda off 41D cardback.

European Green Snake Yoda (Also appears in 6 Pack Baggies).

Grey Head Yoda (Have seen similiar versions on 48 backs).

In January 2008 I made what I reckon is probably my most exciting loose addition to date. It came from a collector in Denmark that a fellow RS member had hooked me up with after I spotted a strange looking Yoda in his webshots gallery. The seller knew very little of its history and was only able to tell me that it had orignially been owned by a collector in the US. At first I thought it was just an unpainted Production Yoda from the pics I had seen but when it arrived I was totally suprised at how different it looked compared to the other 20 or so Light Green (Orange Snake type) Yodas that I already had. His head was much lighter and appears to be made from an almost translucant light green plastic which is very similiar to the material used in Glow in the Dark plastics.

Unpainted Yoda

I was very excited and sent out several emails to other Yoda Focus collectors and a couple of people who I knew were familiar with Pre-Production processes and the like. None of them were able to give me any definate answers on its history but I did get a great link from the SWCA showing an identical First Shot Yoda From the collection of Dan Flarida. I did try to contact Dan to see if he could share any info but have sadly never had a reply 😦 . Would be cool to think the figure was a First Shot but without any proof, I’m just gonna have to keep dreaming 😀

Back to the carded collection and by late last year I had luck finding another Clipper Offer Yoda card, a couple of Canadian Yodas, a couple of Palitoys and a decent Tri-Logo.

Canadian 32 Back

Palitoy 30 Back

Kenner 77A - Clipper Wraparound Offer

Palitoy Tri-Logo

Things were looking up for my US run too and by October last year I had been able to put together a set consisting of 32B, 41A, 41B, 41D (light green, orange snake), 41D (bright green, orange snake), 41D (bright green, brown snake), 41D (dark green, brown snake, 47A, 48B, 48C, 48D, 65A, 65A (Made in Mexico), 65B, 65B (Stemless bubble), 77A, 79A, 79B and POTF 92A leaving just 2 carded Yodas left to complete the US run.

Yoda 47A (4-LOM Offer)

Yoda 65A (Made in Mexico)

Yoda POTF 92 Back

The 2 remaining figures in the US run were  a 45A (which should have been easy) and Yoda on 48A which was an absolute nightmare to track down! First of all the 45A appeared on eBay and with a bit of luck and an AuctionSniper, I awake one morning to find I was the very happy winner of a longtime coming eBay lot 😀

Yoda on 45A (Display Arena Offer)

A few weeks past and after 18 months and 3 attempts on eBay, a 48A appeared on the market. I contacted the seller and told him how desperate I was to aquire the piece and how it would complete my run. A few PM’s went back and forth and soon we realised that we recognised each others usernames from Rebelscum. The seller Jason (Sacko) was very helpful and we soon had a deal. The figure arrived a week later and my US run was complete :D:D

Yoda 48A - AFA80

Inbetween finding the final 2 carded figures I was lucky enough to get my hands of a couple of other loose Yoda variants that I had been after for a while including a TopToys Yoda from Argentina, a Model Trem Bootleg from Brazil and a Yoda with Green Snake in a 6 Pack baggie.

TopToys Yoda (Argentina)

Model Trem Bootleg from Brazil

Yoda (Green Snake) ESB Type B Baggie

With my US run complete and the imminent arrival of our first child I have decided to put my Yoda Focus on a brief hiatus. The remaining Foreign Yodas that I need to complete my collection are very costly and I really can’t justify spending that amount of money at the moment on toys, so for now I have changed my Focus from Yoda to completing a set of Empire Character on Empire Card backs (completed last month) and now Return of the Jedi Characters on Return of the Jedi cardbacks. A Focus which is proving to be a lot of fun and a lot less costly. Hope to be back again in the next couple of weeks with pics of the completed Jedi set to share.

For now I’ll leave you with a couple of random pics from my Yoda collection, enjoy 😉

Yoda on Empire Cards

Yoda on Jedi cards

Various Loose Yoda variants

Close up of loose figures on Yoda shelf

ESB Characters on ESB cards. Complete!

My aim with this set was to get every Empire Character that was released on an Empire cardback and this week I received Luke Bespin to complete the set

Some are on debut cards and other are random. Eventually, I’d like to replace 3 or 4 of them with nicer examples but for now I’ll make do with what I have and continue working on my Jedi set

All ESB Characters released on ESB cards.

With 21 back Chewie & Luke X-Wing.

4-LOM Offer cards

Hope you enjoy my pics 😉

Will be back again next week when I hope to share some information  and pictures of  my Yoda Focus!

Finding a Palitoy Death Star.

Just told this story on RS about a great find I had in 2003 so I thought I would share it here as well. Another great reason why I got back into Vintage collecting.

About 6 years ago my brother was dropping off a mate from work at their home when he noticed a Skip (similiar to a dumpster) at a house a few door up that had a box sticking out of it with a Star Wars Logo on it. He gave me a call and I told him to come and collect me and I would go take a look.

He arrived at my house about 15 minutes later and had this in the boot (trunk) of his car.

Battered Palitoy Death Star Box

As you can imagine, I got very excited and insisted that he take me to the Skip immediately to see if we could find the contents of the box. When we arrived at the scene it was a residental area and he told me he wasn’t going anywhere near it as it was too embarassing to be seen going through peoples rubbish! He parked the car about 50 metres away from the skip and told me I had to go the rest of the way myself. I wouldn’t usually stoop so low to gain an item for my collection but on this occasion I didn’t care  😀

The skip was mostly filled with rubble and broken furniture but after looking for a few seconds I  spotted the cardboard from the DeathStar and pulled it out and ran back to the car with it. I noticed most the accessories (base clips, canopy, X-Wing guns etc) were missing, so I ran back for another look and spotted a few of them scatter around the skip. Again, I lifted what I could but couldn’t reach a few pieces that had fallen to the bottom of the skip. I considering climbing inside it but my brother had already told me that if I did he was driving off and leaving me. I tried to imagine myself in his shoes, so I said “ok”, “fair enough” “lets go” and we left.

(Actual Tongs)

We drove to a local supermarket (Tescos) were he was collecting a few items that his wife had asked him to get. I was having a look around and I spotted these Barbeque Tongs.

I bought them staight away and made my brother take me back to the skip and used the barbeque tongs to reach the other bits at the bottom of the skip. It was a complete success and within about 5 minutes I had collected all the pieces that I could see and returned to the car. We took it home, put it together and this is what I had.

Like I said, I wouldn’t usually go through other peoples trash but on this occasion , I took a chance and it paid off 😉

Modern to Vintage

Hello guys,

Thought I would carry on from my first post by sharing some pictures of my Modern collection and showing a few items that I picked up that  really got me back into Vintage.

Carded POTF2, EP1, POTJ & Star Tours

POTF2 & Deluxe packs

AOTC, Clone Wars & Misc

OTC & VOTC

Vehicles & Playsets

Multi-packs, Mailaways & Vehicles

Vehicles & Misc

Small portion of my loose Modern collection

Small portion of my loose Modern collecton

Small portion of my loose Mordern collection

Clones & Misc

It was around the end of 2003 and I was buying all the Modern figures as they came out, spending a fortune on items that I had lost all interest in.  I was getting really disillusioned with the hobbie and had started to consider buying Vintage figures again to complete my loose childhood collection. It was around this time that a friend came to me with a bag of about 30 loose Vintage figures that he had found in his parents garage while clearing out. I already had them all but there were a few suprises including a Tri Fett, a Tri Dengar and a Tri AT-AT Commander.

Tri Fett

Tri Dengar

Tri AT-AT Commander

I was really excited about adding these figures to my collection and quickly took my childhood toys out of storage to see which figures I had and which figures I needed to complete the set.  I had almost 200 loose figures, most of which were complete and in good condition and I also had a lot of variations too, as well as about 20 boxed Vehicles, Playsets and a stack of boxed and loose minirigs and some carded Tri Logo figures. In my mind, my Vintage collection was almost complete and all I needed were a few items. Man, was I in for a suprise!

Welcome to landoslocker.com – The Blog!

Back in Sept 2006 I launched Lando’s Locker as a showcase for my collection of Vintage Star Wars toy variations,  in that time it’s become a (hopefully) useful resource for fellow collectors worldwide, and it’s brought a lot of enjoyable correspondence from other likeminded folk. I’ve just given the site it’s first little facelift, and I thought it’d be a good time to add a venue to express my personal thoughts on collecting to the site,  so here it is!

What better a subject for my first post than to introduce myself, and tell you how I got involved in collecting…

Coco meets Vader himself, circa Jan 1984

My real name is Stephen Lloyd, but online people know me as cocoFSTAR, an enthusiastic Northern Ireland-based collector of loose vintage Star Wars toy variants, and more recently MOC (Mint-On-Card) examples, with a special focus on Yoda variants. Check out the photos of my collection below.

I think I first saw Star Wars on VHS aged 5 or 6, and like a whole generation of kids I was blown away, and had to have the toys – the first of which was a Tusken Raider (Empire Strikes Back cardback), the first of many!. I’ve still got that original figure, and it’s weird how so many of those toys I got as a kid evoke specific nostalgic memories of childhood.

Unlike most of my my friends, I kept those childhood toys, and my interest in Star Wars never waned, even through the years when popular interest in Star Wars toys fell away (1986-94). When general interest in the original trilogy – and the promise of a new trilogy, sparked a new wave of Star Wars toy production, my collection began to grow more rapidly, but after a few years of collecting modern figures & vehicles my interest began to refocus on the original Kenner line (1977-85) – for reasons I’ll further address in a future post.

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A portion of my collection.

More goodness!

A portion of my Yoda focus collection.

I’ll be adding to Lando’s, and this blog, in the weeks and months to come, so remember to check back for updates. I really appreciate any thoughts and suggestions around vintage Star Wars variant collecting, so feel free to leave comments.

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