With all of the hype surrounding the new Star Wars film The Force Awakens, there is plenty of money to be made. Recently, Sotheby's hosted the first exclusive auction of Star Wars collectibles, known as "Return of the NIGO." Don't be upset if you've never heard of "Nigo." Nigo is a Japanese entrepreneur, designer, and music producer, who provided more than 600 original Star Wars items for this auction, including action figures, toys, coins, and more, from his private collection.
Saturday Night Live did a sketch about kids playing with Star Wars toys, and the part where adults put them away without opening them was actually pretty accurate. It seems some of those old action figures can be worth quite a bit of money, if they are kept in the original packaging and never played with.
In this case, Nigo's collection fetched over $500,000 at auction.
Many of the more expensive items sold at this special auction were unopened, or rare Star Wars toys. Two sets of Star Wars coins ended up going for $27,500, and the most expensive item sold was a rare set of seven action figures only available in Canada in 1980, that went for $32,500. A very rare Luke Skywalker action figure, which was expected to sell for $18,000 – tops – actually brought in $25,000. The Luke Skywalker figure is thought to be 1 out of only 20 in existence.
There were plenty of other Star Wars items to go around, including plush toys which sold for as high as $5,000 and a worn out Return of the Jedi lunch box, which fetched $625. Nigo commented that "As a designer, I have always been inspired by Star Wars. I am honored to be launching this sale and hope that it will bring excitement to Star Wars fans around the world."
Nigo is known for his urban clothing line, A Bathing Ape, or "Bape." He has worked with Pharrell Williams on the Ice Cream Footwear and Billionaire Boys Club brands and serves as creative director for Uniqlo's UT. He is the DJ for the Teriyaki Boyz and has a television show on MTV Japan. Make sure to hold onto those collectibles, because someday they might actually be worth something.
