For almost any collector of vintage or modern toys, most of the gaps in their collection are probably store exclusives. Ranging from newly-sculpted items to simple bundles of existing figures, the smaller production-runs and shortened windows of availability makes them some of the first releases to gain value in any toyline. Kenner’s Star Wars toyline is no exception, with retail-exclusive packaging variants of common figures or vehicles worth hundreds of dollars more to collectors. Besides store exclusives, the other most likely gaps in a collection are end-of-line releases, ordered by retailers and produced by manufacturers in smaller quantities. The worst of both worlds has to be a late-line store exclusive, with multiple factors coalescing to make it nearly-impossible to find. For some collectors, an item that rare becomes a challenge, a holy grail, and a centerpiece to their collection. That scarcity becomes the overriding determining factor of value … even when the item in question is pretty underwhelming.
That’s certainly the case with Kenner’s “Jabba the Hutt Dungeon Action Playset,” a bundle of three Jabba the Hutt’s palace aliens and the base for Kenner’s 1979 “Droid Factory” playset. Just the base, however, as the action features and accessories that gave the original playset its name are not included with the dungeon. What’s left is a plastic base-plate and a crane, looking like a Droid Factory playset scavenged from a neighborhood yard sale. Compensating somewhat are the three included figures: Barada, Amanaman, and torture droid EV-9D9. Even at a glance, this trio would be cause for excitement to a dedicated Kenner Star Wars collector as three of the rarest figures in the original line. Worth hundreds of dollars each in any condition, they represent one of the absolute rarest Star Wars toys ever produced in this packaged set. There’s no better evidence of this than the price attained by a near-mint, graded set up for auction through Goldin’s, already up to more than $1k with two weeks left to bid.
Beginning with the infamous 1978 Cantina Adventure Set, Sears was Kenner’s largest retail partner for exclusives in the Star Wars line. Outside of the accidental-exclusive Blue Snaggletooth figure, the Cantina Adventure Set is typical of a Sears exclusive: a set of standard retail figures packaged with a newly-designed cardboard backdrop. Issued around the holiday season, these sets were intended as an easy Christmas present (and were even marketed directly as such in Sears’ wishbook catalogues). Except for 1979, Sears and Kenner partnered to create a different Adventure Set-type offering for each year until 1984, with the Jabba’s Dungeon Set being the last.
The most elaborate were their offerings for The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and 1981. The beautiful, all-cardboard 1980 “Cloud City Playset” recreated the carbonite freezing chamber from the climax of The Empire Strikes Back, and came with four figures: Bespin Han Solo, an Ugnaught, Lobot, and Dengar. From a strictly film-accurate perspective, Dengar’s inclusion is somewhat incongruous, as he was nowhere to be found during the Bespin scenes, but this is easily when one realizes that these sets were also Kenner’s way of getting rid of excess stock for overproduced figures. Because of the set’s all-cardboard nature, it is incredibly difficult to find on the secondary market, and is arguably the rarest item Kenner produced for The Empire Strikes Back line.
Kenner was able to reuse tooling from their “Land of the Jawas” playset for the 1981 Sears “Rebel Command Center,” which utilized the plastic baseplate from the earlier set. Though sculpted as the Jundland Wastes, the baseplate works surprisingly well as Echo Base, with features like a tread-mark from the Jawa Sandcrawler easily reimagined as left behind by the Rebel ground crew. Three figures were included with the Rebel Command Center: Hoth Luke Skywalker, General Veers, and Sensorscope R2-D2. Lacking the outfit changes that his human companions had, R2 was refreshed by for each movie with a new action feature. For The Empire Strikes Back, it was the Sensorscope. For Return of the Jedi, it was a lightsaber that popped out of the droid, as in the pivotal scene on Jabba’s Sail Barge.
The 1983 set was the “Jabba the Hutt Dungeon Action Playset,” featuring a torture droid and two of Jabba’s henchmen, as well as the baseplate from the earlier “Droid Factory” playset. And no, I’m not repeating myself: Kenner was. They issued two separate versions of the Jabba the Hutt Dungeon with different pack-in figures and a different-colored baseplate. The 1983 version was grey, the 1984 version brown. The 1983 issue is far less valuable, though only by comparison to the 1984 version: in package, it goes for an average price of three hundred dollars, versus the four-figure starting price for a 1984 Jabba’s Dungeon. The three included figures (Skiff Guard Klaatu, Nikto, and 8D9) with the 1983 version are also significantly less valuable. Action figure resource the Toy Collectors’ Guide called both sets “boring and awful,” saying that if the 1983 version “was the worst playset Kenner created, then [the 1984 version] is the second worst.”
The oddest part about either version of Jabba’s Dungeon is that the Droid Factory playset is designed to house all of the not-included droid parts that inspired its name. Dozens of droid parts came with the playset, and most were designed to fit into grooves within the playset’s floor. The droids were the selling point of the set, which even came with an unassembled R2-D2 figure kids could put together themselves. R2 came complete with his retractable center leg, a key part of the character’s design that was only available with the set. There were dozens of novel combinations for the other parts, with some suggested by Kenner in an included set of blueprints. The purpose of the plastic baseplate was as a backdrop and storage for the droid parts, rather than to make for an exciting play environment. The inclusion of 8D8 and EV-9D9 with Jabba’s Dungeon implies that the set depicts Jabba’s droid torture dungeon, adding an ominous subtext to the omitted parts. This is supported by the branding iron accessory included with both sets, the only newly-sculpted part featured in either version.
All three figures included with the 1984 version of the Jabba’s Dungeon playset were part of the Power of the Force line refresh, a short-lived rebrand of the Star Wars line designed to keep it going without new media support. Twenty-two existing characters were issued in the Power of the Force line, along with fifteen new figures. A vac-metallized “collector coin” was included with each figure, it’s unknown why Kenner though the coin would add value or promote sales. Together with a pair of rare Ewoks (issued in small numbers during the Return of the Jedi line), the fifteen Power of the Force characters are known by collectors as “the Final Seventeen,” spoken of with a mixture of reverence and annoyance by collectors unlikely to ever own a complete set.
Despite objectively being one of Kenner’s weakest Star Wars playsets, it’s this “Final Seventeen” pedigree that helps elevate it into being one of the most valued. Graded, mint-in-box samples of the 1984 Jabba’s Dungeon Set are exceptionally rare. The last to be sold at auction was earlier this year through Hake’s, a part of the Jeff Jacob collection, the most complete Kenner Star Wars collection ever made available at auction. In AFA (Action Figure Authority)-graded 80 near-mint condition, the Hake’s sample sold for $2.5k. The sample on auction through Goldin next month is in even finer condition, an AFA-graded 85, making it potentially the highest-grade sample of this playset in existence. With the price already well-above $1k, it looks like this set might also be the highest-priced Jabba’s Dungeon playset in existence, proving that to action figure collectors, value runs far beyond aesthetics.
