"I'm in it for the money."

Luke Skywalker: Rich, powerful. Listen, if you were to rescue her, the reward would be...
Han Solo: What?
Luke Skywalker: Well, more wealth than you can imagine!
Han Solo: I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit.

Star Wars IV, A New Hope.

My coworker Damon brought in his collection of vintage 12-back Star Wars toys today, and it's definitely the original twelve, and it's obviously the vinyl cape Jawa.  Far more interestingly, and more difficult to ascertain from a closed package, the Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker figures look as though they have a two-part telescoping lightsaber rather than a one-part.*

Darth Vader and Obi-Wan toys with the two-part lightsaber are incredibly rare, and it would probably boost the value of the collection to nearly six figures, which sounds ridiculous (and probably is, considering that we're talking about children's toys made out of molded plastic sandwiched between two cents of four-colour printed cardboard and one cent's worth of styrene.

At that point, I told Damon that I was out.  I'm an interested geek with good Google™ skills, but that's it - I have no solid knowledge about these toys. It's definitely time for him to seek out someone with the resources and knowledge to accurately assess the value of his collection, and hopefully give him some guidance in selling it. There's a major collectible/antique fair of some sort here in Vancouver next month, and he'll be attending in hopes of getting further information, if not an actual buyer.

Good luck, Damon - and may the Force be with you.

- Sid

* My girlfriend Karli quite logically asked me how you ascertain whether or not it's a one or two part lightsaber without opening the packaging and destroying the MIB value of the toys.  According to the Internet, the instructions on the back of the card for extending the lightsaber are different for the one and two-part versions - which, again, leads me to think that these may be the two-part versions.