Category Archives: Collecting News

Jabba’s Goons Officially Named

jabba_goons

While browsing through my recent Star Wars Insider (143), I noticed that in a feature titled Rogues Gallery: Jabba’s Henchmen, Keeper of the Holocron, Leland Chee, reveals the actual names of the Weequay Skiff Guard and Nikto Guard as “Pagetti Rook” and “Lathe” respectively. With this new information, the TVC Toyguide entries (VC99 & VC107) for these two figures have been updated to reflect this new info.

Not a single Bothan died to bring you this information, but a protocol droid did get a memory wipe.

New LEGO Displays at Target

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Target stores (and likely soon, Toys”R”us) are putting out some great new LEGO displays to help promote the LEGO Star Wars line.  These displays really show off the greatness that LEGO has to offer and to help boost sales of their bigger toy offerings – check out a couple images in our forums.

Hint for Hasbro:  This is yet another avenue you may want to consider exploring as you look to regain the interest of kids in your product lines.

It Was Love at First Sight…

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“Of course I’m not going to be buying much of the new Star Wars line coming out,” Chewie told his wife multiple times over the past several months.  “I don’t collect 6″ scale toys, and most of the new 3.75″ figures don’t interest me at all.”

Then, after seeing new figures in person today at Target, reality set in.   Well done, Hasbro.  Now I’m angry with you for winning me over with product I swore I wouldn’t buy.  I was mad at you through all of 2012 for how bad you managed the brand, and now I’m somewhat upset at you for kicking things off so well with your new lineups.

Are you feeling the same way as I am this evening about Hasbro’s new launch?  Or have I gone completely crazy?  Share your thoughts in the forums!

Five Below Continues to Stock Vintage

fivebelowagainDo you have a Five Below store in your area?  If so, it may be worth your while to swing by your local establishment and see if they are receiving TVC figures these days – the local store I’ve hit in the St. Louis area received a heavy shipment of the Malgus/Imperial Navy Commander wave about three weeks ago, and restocked again over this past weekend.

The only problem is, each case contains seven Episode One carry forwards from Wave 1 (unless, of course, you need an infinite army of Qui Gons and Obi Wans!).

UPDATE – Yakface reader Chris H., who is an assistant manager at Five Below, tells us that the stores do not have the power to order these on their own.  These cases are distributed throughout the company by how much sells at that particular store.

It Begins: Black Series Packaging Variants

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The official kick off of The Black Series hitting retail starts this week and with it comes news of packaging variants (at least in the US so far) for the first wave of 3-3/4″ figures. It appears that the first runs of these figures have a bubble variant where the embossed “wall pattern” is present on the bubble. Our friends at Star Wars Action News confirm this with the photo above. It shows that the Biker Scout, Clone Pilot and Clone Trooper Sergeant are “missing” this detail while the others in the case do. For those keeping track, the date stamps on those figures without the embossing is 31611 and those figures with it have 31261.

Thanks to Johnathan from Star Wars Action News for the assistance.

For a complete gallery of the variants, head over to StarWarsCollector.com

Jumbo Tri-Logo Yak Face Coming Soon for PGMs

trilogo_Jumbo-Yakface

Gentle Giant has posted their latest release schedule via their Facebook page. Within the listings it shows that the Jumbo Tri-Logo Yak Face figure is scheduled for release in the US some time this month for PGMs (Premiere Guild Members). Don’t panic though, you didn’t miss it as it hasn’t officially gone up for pre-order yet so watch for an announcement soon.