Hi guys,

I’m very happy to present another guest collector onto the blog, fellow Aussie James Kenneison – known as ‘Aussie James’ on the boards and a popular moderator on the TIG forum (The Imperial Gunnery Forum) and of the Facebook groups Australian Star Wars Collectors. Vintage only (18+), which he admins alongside Josh Akerman, Nick Johnston and myself, and the Toltoys Collector 18+ group.

Our last guest collector (http://vintagestarwarscollectors.com/guest-collector-ian-cowley-the-hazards-of-reproductions-on-vintage-collecting/) was a roaring success and am pretty sure this will also be a popular article; albeit a much shorter one. James is an extremely well liked collector and is an absolute bottomless well of knowledge, which he is always happy to share with others. While he is friendly (but not always!) and helpful, he is also not the type of guy you’d mess with and is quick to shut down trouble makers. He does though admit that he can be pretty blunt with people sometimes. Thanks to James for taking his time to write the below as it really is a pertinent topic.

Here he is with his beautiful boy:

And some of his awesome collection!

James’ article is pretty brief and I recruited his assistance as a response to the endless arguments that modern Star Wars toys should be considered ‘vintage’ because some of them are almost 20 years old (such as the POTF2 line which Hasbro released in 1995). Not only this, but modern toys are often described as ‘vintage’ in eBay sales. I think it’s important to clarify the definition of vintage in SW collecting, not only to educate newer collectors but also to allow buyers to not to mistakenly purchase a modern toy.

This is what James had to say.

How do we define ‘vintage’?

There seems to be some confusion about what ‘vintage star wars’ means. It is a term that has been adopted by the Star Wars community & ‘vintage’ is NOT to be confused with any definition of the word that you may normally find. It has nothing to do with wine, it is not an age, rather in Star Wars term, it refers to the toys that were made between 1977-1985. Some of these toys include figures, playsets vehicles, and accessories.

These are fairy lights:

They are not light bulbs stuck up a mythical winged creature’s butt and there is no point arguing about it, the same way we cannot argue that vintage Star Wars does not refer to collectable toys pre 1985.

There are though some foreign SW toy lines that were produced a little bit after this time but are still considered vintage. such as the Brazilian Glasslite line.

The above definition of vintage will never change and POTF2 will never be vintage, no matter how old they become. Don’t debate which bounty hunter is 4LOM vs Zuckuss, how to break an egg or whether modern will be vintage…