I'm not supposed to be "collecting" (or "hoarding") dolls and toys anymore... because of this guy and his Power of the Force pals.

Some years ago now, Star Wars figure collecting became a huge fad, like Beanie Babies and rare Magic the Gathering cards. A friend and I fell in to the profit-driven madness, and spent many an hour scouring department stores and toy stores looking for "rare" figures, like Lando Calrissian and Princess Leia and some version of Boba Fett with... I don't remember if it was full circles or half circles on his gloves. We spent a lot of time and a fair bit of money acquiring and hoarding these figures, planning to cash in big.

Crash big, more like. Yes, the original 1977 era Star Wars figures were becoming valuable because kids bought them to play with them, and relatively few remained mint-on-card. Not the case with these Power of the Force figures. Instead, it seemed that the only people buying them were collectors and speculators, so almost all of them remained mint-on-card.

Years later, both my friend and I looked at the several large storage boxes of virtually worthless Star Wars: Power of the Force figures we had each been lugging around and storing and said to each other, "never again!"

As I mentioned, the Lando figure seen here was, at the time, considered a comparatively challenging figure to find. My friend, living in another state, found one for me, I sent him the money for it, and he was supposed to drop it in the mail to me. He claims he did, I don't recall ever receiving it, and for a number of years a running gag between us was the question, "hey, where's my Lando?"

Today you can find Lando, mint on card, on eBay for two bucks. Less than original retail.

For a long time I managed to avoid "toy speculation." I began to waver when Monster High was released, and began buying multiples of some of the releases I liked, but those have nearly all since been either opened or sold. I still sometimes purchase multiples of certain figures – hello, Pullip Amelia – but now it's because I like them, not for hoarding or speculative purposes, and most of them get opened and the packaging is discarded.

I mostly learned my lesson with The Power of the Force.

Mostly.

My friend and I were chatting about this misguided time in our lives today (oh, what rebels we were in our younger youth, hoarding Star Wars figures), and he sent me this picture of a Power of the Force Lando figure that he has hanging on the wall of his garage as a reminder.

That's probably my Lando figure. 

At least now I know where it is!

These poor Monster High ghouls... Frankie and Ghoulia, I believe... lost their heads back in lucky 2013 or so, unfortunate victims of a ghoulish head-swapping eggsperiment involving Novi Stars dolls. Unfortunately, fitting the Novi Stars heads on to the Monster High bodies required severing the neck ball joint. The final result was interesting, but not long-term engaging, and the Novi Star heads eventually migrated back to their original bodies.

I'm hoping I still have the Monster High heads around here somewhere. If I can find them, I may try to reconstruct the neck ball using... I don't know, bolts and screws and epoxy putty or something. The necks were severed somewhat low, so I do not know if an aesthetically pleasing reconstruction is feasible.