Jabba Fitted Baseball Cap by New Era
You may have noticed that I haven’t updated this blog in the last couple of weeks, and the main reason for that was that I had to go to Japan suddenly for business. I was busy pretty much from morning until night, but one positive side effect of the trip was that I was going to be in Japan just when New Era was to start selling its full range of Star Wars fitted caps. As I said when I wrote about the Jabba cap a couple of months ago, the company started out by making each cap design in size 7.5, but was due to start selling all sizes in January. I had been checking the New Era web site regularly to see when the caps would be available, and sure enough they started selling all sizes a couple of days after I arrived in Japan. Plenty of time for me to order and still have it sent to my hotel in Tokyo.
Or so I thought. Because while the other designs were available in all sizes, the Jabba cap had disappeared completely (aside from a non-clickable image on one page). I wrote the company a quick email (being a Japanese translator can come in handy in some cases) and got the bad news that they had actually canceled the Jabba model due to unspecified problems in manufacturing. They had made some of the size 7.5 Jabba caps, but wouldn’t be making the other sizes and also wouldn’t be making any more of the 7.5s. Ack! I asked them if they had any stock left at all, but never heard back. However, I did stumble upon a Japanese online store that had a single Jabba cap in stock, and as they were based in Tokyo I was able to have them send it to me before I left Japan. I don’t know how many of these got made in the end, but I think its safe to say that it’s a very limited edition.
At the moment the New Era Star Wars hats are only available in Japan, and as I said the Jabba model is pretty much not available at all, unless you happen upon a store that has one left. At around $75 (converted from yen), they’re definitely not cheap, but they are individually fitted and very well designed. Now I should probably say that I don’t intend to actually wear this hat, except maybe at a themed party or convention. And since I had to get the size 7.5, it’s rather tight on me. But I LOVE this hat. Whoever made it obviously put a lot of thought into it. Jabba’s skin has been recreated using what looks to be a synthetic snakeskin material. They then added details like his wrinkles, his nostrils, mouth, and green patches using embroidery. His eyes are also completely embroidered.
The back of the hat is dark green cloth, and they even added an embroidered version of his tattoo (which reminds me strangely of a NY Yankees logo or something in this context). Finally, they’ve printed a picture of Leia and Jabba direct from Return of the Jedi on the inside of the hat’s bill.
It’s a shame that it ended up having such a short lifespan as a product, but I’m very glad that I was able to pick one up. Jabba seems happy about it too. 😉
Jabba the Hutt Mouse from The House of Mouse
Anna Greaves is a British woman living in the Netherlands who apparently makes little felt mice on a full-time basis. Her Etsy store, called “The House of Mouse” features a lot of her designs, although she’s removed all of the ones she doesn’t have on hand because she’s going to be having a baby soon and will be taking time off. Her Flickr photostream has just about every design she’s made. For the moment, she will still make other designs if you contact her, so I asked her to make this Jabba mouse for me before taking off. She’s got lots of Star Wars-themed mice (and was even featured in Steve Sansweet’s new book, “1,000 Collectibles: Memorabilia and Stories from a Galaxy Far, Far Away”
Custom Rancor Mighty Mugg
This is the custom rancor that I made. Here’s a side view.
Jabba Tattoo Vinyl Decal
As you may know, Jabba has a tattoo of a clan symbol on his right arm (some toys and statues get this, some don’t). I got this 4″ vinyl decal of his tattoo symbol from a seller on eBay who apparently prints a variety of things like this. It’s not licensed, but I think it looks pretty cool on the side of my Jabba case.
Star Wars Miniatures: Jabba the Hutt & Jabba Crime Lord
These are pre-painted plastic figures used in the Star Wars Miniatures game. I don’t know how to play the game, but apparently each miniature comes with a card that includes the character’s stats and a brief description. These are each slightly over 1 inch tall, which doesn’t sound very big, but they’re considerably bigger than the Micro Machines Jabbas, for example.
The first one (“Jabba the Hutt”) is clearly based more on his appearance in Return of the Jedi, complete with part of his throne and Salacious Crumb. “Jabba Crime Lord” is closer to his appearance in the prequels. The paint job on the first one in particular is a little rough, but they did at least get what I consider to be the proper color scheme. Click on the backs of the cards below to enlarge them and read the text.
Custom Oola Mighty Mugg
Here’s my custom Oola Mighty Mugg. This one was a little tricky for various reasons. The mesh pattern on her costume was hard to pull off (and I’m not totally happy with it) and female Muggs always seem to look a little strange. It’s frustrating to try and mimic the Mighty Muggs style with a brush, since the actual Muggs are made with computers and “printed” on the figures with special machines. Still I’m relatively happy with it.
My previous customs were Jabba and Bib Fortuna.
Kenner Jabba the Hutt Buddy Prototype Sold On eBay
A rare prototype for the Kenner Star Wars Buddies Jabba the Hutt just sold on eBay for around $160 (no, not to me). Unfortunately a fellow Jabba collector I know lost out on it in the last few minutes. It’s an interesting piece of Kenner history. I don’t know how many of these were made. I kind of like the black “stealth” Jabba. 🙂
Sideshow just gave a sneak peak of their upcoming diorama depicting the scene where Leia chokes Jabba to death. It’s still a work in progress, but from what we can see so far it should be a very cool piece, and the first statue to be based on this scene as far as I know.
Jabba the Hutt Guitar Pick by Fernandes
Fernandes (a Japanese company) put out a series of Star Wars guitar picks and related accessories a few years ago. This is the Jabba the Hutt guitar pick.
Vintage Jabba’s Throne Room Super Transfer Set by Presto Magix
I wrote about a couple of individual Presto Magix sets (Jabba’s the Hutt Throne Room Scene and Sarlacc Pit) a while ago, but this is considerably more impressive. While the others were just paper in a plastic wrapper, this is boxed and includes a very sturdy board like you might find in a board game. It includes 6 sheets of transfers and a “special magix stick” which is just a plastic stylus that you can use to apply the transfers instead of using a pen or pencil. I love the picture of this kid on the box. He’s also featured prominently on the instructions.
As with the other sets, there are some odd character choices for the transfers. Admiral Ackbar is here again (four times!), as well as people like Darth Vader who weren’t seen in Jabba’s Palace. But I guess the idea is that you can make up your own story that doesn’t necessarily follow the movie. You do get most of the characters that you’d expect (even Oola and a huge rancor) but there’s still no Slave Leia. In the entry about the other Jabba Presto Magix set I complained that you got the Endor “bike riding” version of Leia instead of Slave Leia, and in this version you get the “Ewok celebration” Leia. Maybe they were under orders not to use Slave Leia due to her revealing outfit, but the inclusion of Oola seems a little odd if that’s the case. Unfortunately my set has two of the same sheets, and is missing the one with the Millennium Falcon and other ships.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 
