The very first LEGO Star Wars set ever sells for more than $5,500
Fancy getting your hands on the very first LEGO Star Wars set ever? You’ll need deep pockets: an incredibly rare example has sold online for more than $5,500.
Back when Star Wars’ biggest misstep was the Holiday Special and the prequel trilogy was presumably still planned to revolve around Darth Jar Jar, the LEGO Group was busy announcing to the world that it was moving into licensed territory for the first time. Its initial adventures in a galaxy far, far away began in 1999, the same year The Phantom Menace debuted in cinemas, tackling characters and vehicles from both the new movie and the original trilogy.
Months before 7140 X-wing Fighter, 7128 Speeder Bikes and 7110 Landspeeder started flying off shelves, though, the very first LEGO Star Wars set was actually already in the hands of a select few. At Toy Fair in February 1999, the LEGO Group handed out a limited number of copies of a promotional box, announcing its partnership with Lucasfilm for the LEGO Star Wars theme.
“We’ve joined forces to create our most stellar product launch ever,” reads the internal flap, while the exterior of the box proclaims: “Building a new galaxy in 1999.” Printed on the rear are images of 7140 X-wing Fighter (with its wings very much not in an ‘X’ formation) and Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced, originally included in 7150 TIE Fighter & Y-wing, while inside you’ll find a small brick-built platform with minifigures of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
Given the first wave of sets didn’t arrive in stores until May, these are technically the first-ever LEGO Star Wars minifigures, bundled inside the first-ever LEGO Star Wars set. But if you want to add them to your own collection, you’re going to need a bottomless bank account: the latest known copy has sold through Goodwill to YouTuber MandRproductions for an eye-watering $5,501, while Instagram user rarest_lego_minifigures reportedly paid nearly twice that for a version with its white outer box.
The LEGO Group has never officially revealed how many copies of this promotional set were produced, but MandRproductions estimates around 200 exist, while rarest_lego_minifigures reckons there are only 100 – and none are in the same condition as theirs. There are discrepancies even between these two examples, too: the YouTuber’s includes an accurate green lightsaber for Luke, while the other copy incorrectly gives the Jedi a blue lightsaber.
That backs up rarest_lego_minifigures’ assertion that their copy was among the first produced for Toy Fair – and goes some way to explaining their valuation of an incredible $50,000 – though there’s really no way to know for sure. Either way, this is a genuine piece of LEGO Star Wars history, and one that doesn’t crop up on the aftermarket all that often. Not that most of us would be able to afford it anyway…
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- I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.
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Man pays $10k but claims valuation of $50k ?. Good luck in finding someone (or two, in an auction) willing to pay that!