Bootleg Jabba the Hutt and Gamorrean Guard Miniatures from Mexico

Mosh, a member of the Rebelscum forums, posted about these figures a while back and kindly acquired them for me. According to him, they were purchased at a shop that sells a variety of “home ornaments” and has a shelf with some bootleg Star Wars figures. When he asked, he was told that they were created by the 86-year-old owner, who has been making molds for these kinds of figures since the original movies came out. However, I think you have to take that with a grain of salt. It might be that he was just reselling the figures and adding a good story to make them more attractive, or maybe he didn’t actually sculpt them but did have a hand in their creation (casting or painting, etc.). (See this thread for the whole range he offers. The inclusion of things like the Super Battle Droid seems a little odd.) I guess technically these aren’t bootlegs, since they aren’t copies of existing products. They’re just unlicensed figures.

In any case, I’ve never seen these particular models offered anywhere else, so of course I had to get a Jabba. It consists of three pieces. Jabba himself (who is made of a lead alloy), Salacious Crumb (also metal) and the throne (which is probably some kind of resin). The pieces aren’t connected to each other in any way.

The sculpt on Jabba is rough, to put it mildly, although by the standards of other Mexican bootlegs, the paint job isn’t really that bad.

Detail on Salacious Crumb is also on the soft side, but he’s teeny tiny — about 1cm tall. When you consider his size, the paint job is actually pretty darned good — the eyes in particular.

The thing that I like best about this set is that it’s an almost exact miniature copy of the vintage Kenner Jabba the Hutt playset. This is especially obvious if you look at the throne, which is like a shrunk-down version of the Kenner one. Only the Kenner version has the two panels on the top like this, and the other details match up perfectly as well.

I also got a Gamorrean Guard, and the paint on this one is really quite impressive (again, considering the diminutive size).

This is the kind of item I love to discover. It’s too bad he doesn’t have any other characters that are expressly from Jabba’s palace, although I wouldn’t mind getting a Boba Fett or the droids given the chance.