Vintage British Return of the Jedi School Bag By Frankel & Roth (Jabba the Hutt & Bib Fortuna)

I love finding stuff like this. I’ve been collecting Jabba items in earnest for a couple of years now, and sometimes it seems like I’ve seen everything there is to get. But I had no idea that this bag even existed. It was sold in Britain by Frankel & Roth as a part of a small line of bags and pencil cases (called “Bags of Character” which is a rather clever name if you think about it). As you can see, it has a large central picture of Jabba and Bib Fortuna, and three smaller pictures of C-3PO, Darth Vader, and R2-D2 with Wicket the Ewok.

It’s about 12″ tall and wide. It can fold nearly flat if there’s nothing in it, but can open up to about 5 inches deep. It’s got 2 handles made of silver vinyl and one shoulder strap, and zips closed on the top. The tag on mine refers to a “three-way super bag” on its back, but the illustrations seem to be of a different type of bag — one that can convert into a backpack. It’s also dated 1982, while the back itself has a 1983 date (as would be expected for something from Return of the Jedi). So either they used an old tag on this bag, or this isn’t the tag that originally came with the bag at all, and someone just put it on later.

In any case, I was excited to get it because it features Jabba so prominently, and I don’t have any other bags in my collection.