Link: Unproduced Micro Collection Gamorrean Guard Figure Wax Prototype on Ebay Starting at $15,000

In one of my many searches of eBay for Jabba-related items, I hit upon this auction for a wax “4-up” figure (meaning that it was sculpted in wax at four times the size of the intended figure). It would have been used for a Jabba-themed Micro Collection playset, but unfortunately they cancelled the line before it was produced. More information about this prototype can be found here.

Now, let me say first off that I think $15,000 is an insane amount of money for something like this. But that’s not to say that the person selling this (who is a respected member of the Star Wars collecting community) is necessarily being unreasonable with this auction. Things connected to the vintage toy lines — particularly pre-production items like this — often sell for sky-high prices. But to be honest, I’m not sure I understand why people are willing to pay thousands for this kind of thing.

Many collectors seem really focused on the vintage toys to the exclusion of anything else. Spend a little time on the Rebelscum forums, and you’ll see a lot of people who have spent years (and a fortune) to collect every variation of a particular character on every vintage card, or pre-production versions of different figures that at first glance are almost indistinguishable from the regular versions. I have a lot of respect for the collections they’ve built, but it’s just not for me.

To me, the vintage toys are cool and a nostalgic part of my childhood, but I like Star Wars collecting as a whole, including some of the amazing stuff that’s being produced today. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t love to get some preproduction items, but they’ll have to be a LOT cheaper than this for me to consider them.