Episode 6 : The Phantom Mannace

We don't sound that kind of thing up. What? Good joy. Left away that side.

We don't want to go. Hello and welcome to the Star Wars 4 in UK podcast. I'm Stuart Skinner, your host of the show. This is episode 6, The Phantom Manace.

Do you want to mean this evening? As always, are the usual suspects. First, we have someone whose comments are about as useful as the left hand side of the countdown clock. But we love him anyway.

It's Richard Hutchinson. Good evening, Rich. Good evening, guys. Next, we have someone who has spent the last month immersing himself in Star Wars documentaries, Star Wars Shakespeare, Star Wars Christmas tunes.

You name it, he's been into it. He's our completed. Grog, good evening, sir. All right, well, lovely.

We also have with us, as usual, Ben Coomba. His mouth is always in gear, but his brain is often in neutral. It's like that's not the case this evening, good evening, Benji. Hello.

And finally, we have Peter Davis. If you gave him a pay for his thoughts, you get change. Evening, Ben. All right, my lovely.

On the show this month, we have an excellent interview with popular forum member Chris Man. We discuss many things, including his Yoda Focus. We have a fascinating boom section this month. As Richard makes a look at the new Star Wars collectors archive format.

Grog brings us his second part of the Star Wars computer games in this month's odd balls. And we'll also take a look at the events that have been over the past month and give us a rundown of what it's still to come. As well as all this, Ben brings us the top purchases of the forums he tells into latest acquisitions thread. He continues to keep an eye on the market.

And in his month's forum roundup, which includes a short chat with David Mox about his sealed mailer box, which after six years of owning, he's finally finding out what is inside. All this to come on the SWF UK podcast, the sixth edition. Well, when we close the last podcast, I mentioned that Ben and his beautiful wife, Emma, would you have their baby daughter, which they have had. So huge congratulations, Ben.

Can tell us a bit about her weight, name, et cetera. Oh, yeah, please, guys. Her name is Ellie May, and she was born on the 2nd of October, 9 minutes past four weighing eight pound six ounces. So yeah, mother and baby are doing well.

And I'm just getting used to the first new date of being a father. No, it's great, isn't it? Excellent, Ben, congratulations. Can I just ask, is she taller than you yet?

No, but she speaks better English than you do. Ben, I noticed that the name is Anna Graham of Leah. Well done. Is it?

How do you spell Leah, mate? Because it's EWLE. There's a few letters in there. I suppose maybe it's rich, but it might be something.

It's in there. Don't worry about it. It's a hidden name. So Ben, as well as the most expensive and the most precious acquisition this month, you just talked about, have you been buying anything else?

Well, as you know, being a father of yourself, Stuart, finances become a bit tight when you finally decide to start having kids and you've got to be a bit careful with what you spend. So I bought myself a DT loop this month. Possibly not the most sensible thing I've done. I wanted one and one was available.

No, I got a budget for one. So it's not in a pristine condition, but I'm well pleased with it because I've been after one for a while and they seem to be not many for sale at the moment at reasonable prices. And I picked up a couple of other loose figures as well. There in like a best bin I needed, a variant boss and I'm looking, come back on Joe.

And I've entered the murky world thanks to Mr. Grant Criddle of Scented Erasers, just this evening brought a pack of six of the return of the Jedi Scented Erasers from OliSud's lasset he's got. It's really worrying the Grant's doing this all of us, isn't it? Oh, I think he's coloring the Scented Eraser market.

And I know he's got hundreds and hundreds of boxes on them. And he's actually probably selling them out for our third party. I think possibly early Sud is a franchise of Grant Criddle, but I'll see when they turn up. As all of you got, Scented Erasers now.

Yeah, that's all good. Pete? No. Pete, you're not cool.

Good. Do you want to buy some erasers? Yeah, go on. Now previously, we've had a couple of comments from our overseas listeners that they would like to know where about we are in the UK.

So they can place our accents with our location. Now, Ben, it's been noted before that we are probably the most similar accents out of the five of us. And I think that's mainly due to the fact that where we come from, we speak basically the correct Queen's English. Now, you're from Hove.

So could you explain to the listeners where that sits on the map of the UK? Hove is in Sussex by the sea. One of the home counties sits just about in the middle, maybe as you're looking at the map slightly to the right. And it's about as sub-a-lage as you can get on this point.

I can look out on my front-room window and I can see to see. Yeah, quite a bright and that'll probably be the nearest city that people would know. Just keep referring to the Queen's English. But it's a common misconception that we don't actually speak the Queen's English.

We speak standard English. Queen's English is an incredibly complicated language to understand. So... Like Northern?

Not quite like Northern North. So it's standard English. You speak all guess about English, don't you? Well, in relation to Ben, then I'm about 90 miles east of where he is and under and out of London.

So if you're looking at a map of the UK, I'm down the very bottom, right-hand side, on the little section that sticks out. The Garden of England, as Richard has spoken from one end of the country to the other then, Rich. Where can we find you on the map? I'm the most northerly point on the podcast team.

Right up north in the near Castle. A lot of people... I don't know why, but a lot of people know here during the war from abroad. And it's not really that big.

Things aren't like the Great Water China, it's only a three-foot high-wall. So it seems to be quite famous, a particular amount of that. So I'm right up there next to that war. We call it Castle Blacknow because of the Game of Thrones and obviously all the Scots on the other side.

So they're the... What do you call them? The white walkers or something like other whitelings. So that's where I am.

Any light decorations to add to your voice to growing collection? Yeah, I have settled down to this month. Although I have spent a lot on-store wars, it's just not over me. So I also bought a pack of the Senator Eisaz, like what Ben did.

It was all these goods on the phone were selling. I think I bought five sets and I picked up one of those. I've also picked up a diecast, Dafia the TIE Fighter, which is loose, but it's in absolutely a marketer condition because the guy who was selling it said it had come through a bubble on the packaging and he wanted to keep the packaging but wanted to sell the Dafia TIE Fighter. So it's in a marketer condition, so I'm really, really pleased with that.

I've actually picked up a couple of modern episode one card to figure out. I'm slowly, very, very slowly buying them. So if anyone's got any for sale, I only pay two pound each of them. So getting conduct, if you've got a few, then I might be invested in.

I've bought me tickets for, as well as event that's coming up, which will be talking about late, I'm in Belgium. And I've also bought two quite hefty items from my secret Santa. I'll be talking about late. I want to as well.

I haven't made any huge purchases, but it's still all I've done. Good stuff. Hey, anything to your collection? I've already had a few modern bits of pieces, but nothing.

I've been in interest, haven't really for our little beer trip. I mean, our little trip to Belgium, which should be rather interesting. But I think I've actually got this month, which was the last bit of, particularly a slavelier Lego, I haven't figured out, which completes my slavelier Lego collection of all three pieces. Oh!

And Pete, you're from Lemington Spa, or should I say Royal Lemington Spa? I think you have to say Royal Lemington Spa, saying as you're one of the poor, southern cockney boys. It's funny that me and Ben speak more royalty language. You're done.

Can you tell by this, that's firstly where it is, and secondly why it is regarded as Royal. You're calling that the Queen's English, what you speak. You're like two bobaboys, you're like, you know, a style boy in Rodney of the podcast. You're the cock is, anyway, Royal Lemington Spa is given Royal, because Queen Victoria decided that she loved it so much, so she granted it Royal status, because she used to stay in Lemington, supposedly.

Although some people argue that she actually went past it in a train and said, oh, that looks nice. And then we're from there, but we don't know, we don't care. I know whatever you use anyway, but you can't write it down, which is interesting. We're not allowed to use Royal on any of your paper, you have to ask permission from the Queen.

So there we go. But Lemington Spa is right in the other country. It's almost central, there's a tree signified, Senator England, even though Meridian will argue that, and a few other stupid little villages that I know where, will also argue the same thing. But it is pretty central, and we never get to see the sea, so I get never to see.

I get a bit weird. But weird are the normal? Yeah, oh, really weird. You've got what's coming when we go to cross the sea.

Oh, dear. So finally, Grant, you're a resident Welshman. Can you explain your location? I like Boil.

Well, if there's a blank center to the universe, I live in a village I've just found this from. If you actually get your hand, you're left hand, and just hold down in front of you and look at your thumb, and where your thumb joins your hand, that's where I live in the UK. So, yes, it's very nice to round you. It's actually not far from a place called Puzzle Wood, where they recently started filming episode seven.

So, yes, they've been a far and smooth of yarn. It's very nice. Now, last month, Grant, you mentioned that you were out of the collecting game, but I know for a fact that you've added at least one piece of your collection this month, so what have you been purchasing? Well, I've got one actual physical piece, but I've actually been collecting lots of digital stuff that you can go off the internet, like documentaries and stuff like that.

So I managed to pick up lots of rare documentaries, and some deleted scenes and stuff that I didn't have in my library, so I've been chasing down that kind of stuff. Some music I didn't have. I have managed to get a Canadian TIE Fighter pilot car back, which is very nice, but hopefully next month when we have this conversation, I'll add a lot more to say. Wonderful.

Stuart, have you done anything this month? Not a lot, Benjamin. Not a lot. I picked up a few more loose figures from a LDS off the forum, and Ian, who also said my son, an FX7 figure for free, which he loves, and more importantly, he means he's not putting my one out of my collection in his sand pit.

I've also purchased the new Star Wars novel when you'd done, which I'll be starting to read in the next few days, finally picked up Plastic Galaxy on DVD, and thoroughly enjoyed that. Now, you two, Ben and Rich, you both picked up a run of the Perfume Barazers from OliSud, so I picked up a display box for the Perfume Barazers from OliSud, so he's done a good business out of us for this month, and the only other thing I've really purchased was the Return to Jedi Pim Badge, but I also purchased a Return to the Jedi necklace, and in all honesty, it's got to be the most hideous thing I've ever seen in my life. If anyone ever wore one, you've got to be, you've got no class, I'm sorry, you're shocking, you need to kill him. But that is it, I'm giving my money back further, the unfact of any Belgium and Fobis from.

Now Pete, I believe you have a question for us all. I do have a wonderful question for you all, my little flowers. What is your favourite toy droid in the Star Wars universe? I've collected any type of things.

Your favourite droid? Come on, Richard, you always got the answer. What's your favourite droid and why? My favourite droid is R5D4, the little figure as a genius.

It's such a shame that it's headed and popped off. It would have been great, you know, when they came up at the Census School for R2, and so it would have been great to have some kind of mechanism on R5D4 that you're just pressed on the top with the top off. But what I like about it is the colours are so bright and vivid, and it's very, very similar to R2, but I don't think the blue and white in R2 works, as well as what the red and white do is an R5D4, so that gets my favourite. Also, it's got the best card back.

R5D4 is the best card back of any of the card backs going from the Star Wars line right before the force. I'd say that is one of the only Star Wars logoed car backs on that sort of original sort of 20 odd line, which I've actually got along with him and Luke Farboy, they've only got Star Wars. It's got the early Star Wars car backs, but yeah, I think that one. Richard said that you wanted an R5D4 with a pop off head, but obviously there would have been issues back in the day, which they had with a rocket firing bobberfette.

But ironically, the power of the force 2 R5D4 came with a rocket, so there we go, the circle is complete. Get it, get it, get it, and you can live your fantasy. Right, Ben, you're like a droid, what's your favourite? I'm a blue and traditionalist when it comes to droids.

I disagree with Rich. I think R2D2 is the better of the two. I prefer the colour, blue and white being a spare supporter. I can't stand the red on R5D4.

Yeah, he's just the iconic droid from the film. I like the action figure out of the shiny dome and the clickingness. I like the fact that he's got three different incarnations, and I think the original R2D2 photo art on the car back is very good. That's one of my favourites as well.

And still, you're the height of a very small droid. What's your favourite? I agree with Ben there. R2D2, the car back, the original car back is probably my favourite car back out of the entire range of figures.

I think it's lovely. I do love him and I do love the power drive. I have to say, IG-88, I've always loved him as a figure, so he's my favourite droid. Is it because it is bending leather that fall off?

That'd be like... I think it was a figure that I had from childhood. I can't think of it as my grandparents, and it's one of the figures I've still got. I still love him.

It was just different, and he was just... I sometimes got a bit of him and I've got a little... Which share of variations if you have any of the IG-ADs? I like the grey over the silver.

The dull grey one? Yeah, a bit more worn rather than the... It's a bit of a fluff of the galaxy. It's the only one that's a bit on place for me.

I do know I always found IG-88 really hard to get as a child. I never got one, and one of the reasons was it was always expensive. When I can remember, getting the last sort of figures of the Imperial Dignity and R2 pop up to save it when they come out, and you could get them for 99p, but IG-88 was always £2.50. That's something I just remember from my childhood.

I was never able to get the figure. My nan and granddad, they used to have an IG-88. I don't know why. On top of their fridge in their house.

It was there for about two years. I was always playing with it in the way around there. One day they just said, you can have that today. I was so made up.

Very good. Did that IG-8 here? You used to have little markings on the side, and then have a Stu-Eash 3, Stu-Eash 4, Stu-Eash 5. Yeah, then it stopped.

That's very good. Very good. What's your favourite droid my little well-sweller? Well, I think your FID-4 car back is probably one of the top five.

I'll give you 99. I'll go for a power droid. If you explain the logic behind that decision, they're grand, because you seem to be going through a process on the podcast, which was leading to an inevitable outcome. You didn't quite reach it.

You kind of just said random droids. I looked at like Star Wars. Yeah, if you looked at Star Wars, what's your favourite Star Wars thing, Gran? My mum.

Oh, bless. What's she in Star Wars? Yeah, she was EV-99, like I said. Who's she?

Oh, yeah. It's pretty even EV-99, if you believe that you're the back story. I know you're good at washing up your shoes around, that's for sure. Yeah, she'll be good.

Yeah. Excellent. Hey, Gran, just wait. Is she friends with Pam Rose?

No. She was in Star Wars as well. She's making a killing out of his, isn't she? I'll let you guys in on the secret.

I find out what Pam Rose is doing, and from that I write the event section. That's because I love her, man. She's awesome, so don't know worries. Have you got like access to our outlet diary?

What events are happening this month? Pam Rose is very busy. What about you, Pete? It's one of the most important things that you can do.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. What about you, Pete? What's your favourite?

Droit? Let me not think. Well, I was going to say the power druid, but Gran's ruining now. As a kid I didn't like it, because it was rubbish.

It was a box on feet. But then later in life, it became really cool. So, because walking around is bonk a lot. You know, I'm torn between that and C-2-p-O with removable arms.

Him and his at Rucksat, which you back at, that's brilliant. A pork ball droid that can be your own little friend on your backpack. So I'll say C-2-p-O, but mangled. I'll have to make that.

Ben, Ben on the podcast, often sits there and goes and goes again. He's my podcast, isn't it? Ben could be a conch droid. I'm not convinced.

I don't know, I'm really thinning in the flesh. He might just be a bloke, a box on a, on feet. I just don't know. Some people don't know about me sometimes.

Big box of feet. You have, I was going to say you have met me and you know what, I'm not a box on feet. I was about to say it's I run it because you're a trampol or a drabon legs. That'll be, I could be a massive conch droid.

You just don't know. Alright, well, let's move this on then. And let's go over to Ben for this month's latest acquisition segment. Hi guys, this is Grant from Star Wars 4 UK podcast.

Just a quick message to say thank you for listening to our podcast. We had no idea if anyone was listening, but we've since located some details that we'd like to share with you. In the five episodes that we've done, we have received 37,100 feet hits with 4,260 plays. What really has surprised us is that 43% of our listeners are from outside of the UK.

So a big hello to all of our listeners in the United States, Canada, Sweden, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Norway, Belgium, China, France, Germany, South Africa, Mexico, the Russian Federation, the Czech Republic, Austria, Denmark, New Zealand, Japan, Turkey, Philippines, Poland and Finland. Thank you so much for listening. We humbled about these figures and inspired to work even harder, bringing you more entertaining and more celebration of vintage Star Wars. May the Force be with you always.

This month's latest acquisition spread has been moving along quite nicely. It's been quite a few interesting things that have appeared in there. So I picked a few out of the court, my eye. I'm going to go back to the original format at this section, I think, last month's didn't seem to work very well.

So let's talk about some of these things on this thread. First up, what I want to talk about is not actually Star Wars, but Star Wars related. And that is, Spoons has picked up a couple of figures from the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, which is the range in 1992. They're loose, Friar Tucks.

Now, I probably think of what the hell are we talking about these four, but they're quite interesting because they're made of recycled parts. And I'm kind of dipping this with a few items from its Robin Hood Prince of Thieves range. The only figure that I did this with was the Friar Tuck figure. And if you look at it, you can see pretty obviously that it's basically got the nappy in the bottom half of a Gomorion guard that's been painted up as a human.

It does come with a cloak and I suppose the reasoning must have been since they didn't really know what Friar Tuck had underneath his cowl, but they could just put it on thing in there and whether or not they had the Gomorion guard and molds lying around and thought, yeah, let's just recycle these. Who knows, but they've reused this particular figure to make these Friar Tucks. And they've also recycled a couple of the Ewoks, play sets and the vehicle I suppose you could call it the Ewok battle wagon, which was never in the Star Wars film, has been recycled as a Robin Hood battle wagon, which was never in the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves film. And the Ewok village was recycled as a Sherwood Forest play set.

This isn't the only time that Kenner had been known to use recycled parts in other toy lines, and also Palatoe as well used a few of their toy parts in other toy lines. So I don't know if you guys know of any of the other toy lines where Kenner of recycled Star Wars, Richard? Yeah, actually before Star Wars, the $6 million man, there were three items that I can think of that were reused in Star Wars. You had mainly all items like a pen set.

I think there was a toothbrush ship I remember right, and one of those E.M. headsets, I think in Get a Looks guy brought out the E.M. headset, that was what all were used for the $6 million man line. But there's quite a few items that were reused in Star Wars.

Obviously the most famous one probably is the creature cantina, which was reused as the real-rescout white glazed set. Obvious ones such as the 12 inch Han and the 12 inch Indifigure were pretty much the same mole, but they had different paint ops, they had some fours head. The action to space down for the first 12 was reused for the glamour girls. I think one of the laser rifles was reused.

Those early Star Wars were used for rifles. I think one of those were reused for another line. Some of the less obvious ones such as the Star Wars Walked Talkies, they were used for Batman and I'm pretty sure that was just slapping on in the stick. That's what they become.

I suppose if you wanted to be really neat, you could probably see the SSP vans and things like that were out before Star Wars, and then the Star Wars slapped on them, reused items. Obviously they did that because the cost of these and the cost of more things are in the design. So if you're spending all that money on design, in tool and die cast, injection mold, etc. And you've got another toy range coming out, then why would you go through all that expensive game where you can reuse what's already there.

Just give a different colour, just put another bit of cardboard in, slap a different sticker on, and it becomes an eraser to save it to save the fortune of costs. One of the interesting things with these Fryotuck figures that I've read whilst I've been doing my research is the actual detailing on these, despite the fact that they were made in 92, was better than the detailing on the Gomorian guard. So it wasn't just a case of reusing the mold, obviously they took it and reused it, but they must have had one of their sculptors do some fine detailing. The medallion that is on the Gomorian guard has disappeared and a knife, I think, appears on the side of Fryotuck.

And a few other details were made a lot crisper and a lot clearer. So they did do a little bit of work, I suppose, the Ewok Battle Wagon and the Ewok village also are slightly different. They've been slightly modified for the Robin Hood line of toys. They also recycled a lot of the Star Wars weapons in something called the droids range, which is another one of their toy lines, but I don't really know a great deal about that.

Stuart? Yeah, when we were growing up, one of my older siblings had a tree top house, I don't know if any of you knew what this was, it was like a tree, which you pressed down the top and opened up into a house. And they surprised it, wasn't it? Yeah, that kind of toy, they rehashed that and made it into an Ewok family heart in the Kennes Priest Ball range.

It's basically the same toy, but it's painted yellow and they've done away with a car and put in a little worm. It was like for the Ewok to travel in, so that was basically identical, the photos of things in the rooms and everything. Yeah, the remodeling of the Ewok village. The problem is, I think, is that the Prince of Thieves was at Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, and their figures were actually 6 inches tall.

So even though they were on Ewok village, they were giants, so even though that didn't quite work as well. What is really interesting though is our friend Dave Treat did a presentation for his Palitai Archive, and that's based on the work that Palitai were doing with Star Wars, and Palitai had its own license at the same time called Action Force, which is sort of like their answers to G.I. Joe. And what Palitai were doing was that they were using components from the Star Wars line, the Kennes Star Wars line, basically using those components for their own Atro Force toys, so you'd have things like the Skywalker hat should be found and guns, and if you found somebody, Action Figors would have the Han Solo blasters in it.

I'm not actually 100% sure, we should get David to try on to discuss the amount of cross-contamination between the licensees and parts, which would never happen today. I mean, the core case would be massive, but I used to get away with stuff like that back then, which is the presentation I saw was fascinating, and I think definitely something we should be looking to. He's written a bit on those as well, because I've read a little bit about it in the past, and I think the Falken radar dish is another one that appears on one of the Action Force. But like you say, it's incredible to think that I suppose it's like a company these days may be producing a computer exclusively for one manufacturer, but I think bits off the side and putting them in their own product without the other manufacturer noticing.

It would never happen to be. It's basically ripping off, isn't it? Yeah, massively. But a fascinating part of the history of Star Wars in Britain, I think.

Whilst we're talking about spoons, I just also wanted to mention a couple of bits about his first shot, his INT first shot that we were talking about a couple of podcasts ago. I'm going to go touch on this briefly, but we were talking about the difference between his first shot and the actual finished article that was sold as the toy, and he got back to us. And basically what it is, on the two fold-down wings, on the actual production version, there's like a raised rib that basically structurally strengthens the wing. So obviously they produced the first shot and whether or not they had a problem with these wings bending or snapping, so they thought basically we'll put a ribbon and strengthen the wing a bit to stop it from bending.

So that's what the differences between is, well not the only difference, but the real difference between his first shot and the actual production item. So a bit of interesting information there. Okay, there's been a few people that have picked up some interesting loose figures. Not necessarily anything so could do, but a couple of little things I wanted to mention.

First one was War Key, who got an ATST driver loose for nine pounds in really good condition, which is not something that will excite anybody I don't suppose, but what was nice about this one is the ATST driver is supposed to come with an indoor blaster, which this one did, but it came with the solid black indoor blaster as opposed to the grey-blue indoor blaster that they normally come with. And this weapon is only found with the aiming pilot and the Imperial gunner, and it's far rarer than the grey-blue one. So just basically when you're buying these loose figures, it pays to keep your eyes peeled, because you never know what bonuses you might find as opposed to most people ending up with repo weapons. This particular loose one came with a black blaster.

Richard, have you got a question about this? No, just statement, the black indoor blaster is usually going for 20 to 25 pounds now, so I think that's enough to crack and score. The one big shortage of people wanting to buy that blaster if you want to sell it. I say it really pays to keep your eyes peeled, and maybe know your weapons.

The Imperial gunner is probably one of the best resources for checking which versions of what are quite common weapons are particularly rare, maybe they only turned out with one or two figures as opposed to assuming that they may have come with several of the figures that would have had that type of weapon. Another good example of that would be stormtrooper blasters, jet-black stormtrooper blasters, which we obviously know only turned up with certain droids figures and the Luke Skywalker in stormtrooper outfit. A little bit of an interesting side thread that came out of this, which I'm not going to go into, but it's worth a read if you're after one of these, and I had no idea. The black indoor blasters come with the open pilot and the Imperial gunner.

There is a very, very subtle difference between the two, which Wauky I think has highlighted. It's tiny, but they are actually different weapons depending on the figure. So have a look at what he's written on the thread and check your blasters. Now, Pontchoke belts also picked up a nice loose figure, which is a short-mouth biker scale, and this variant is quite a cool variant because it's a genuine variant, and by that I mean not that I discredit all the different COOs or the different colours, but this is one that's quite visibly different to the normal biker scale that we see quite a lot.

The difference between this biker scale and a normal biker scale is the mouthpiece of the normal biker scale. It starts and goes down to the bottom of the helmet, but doesn't end, whereas this one is in a defined shape and there's a little bit of white across the bottom of the helmet. So it's effectively like a very small mouthpiece within the helmet rather than filling up the entire front. Go on the thread and have a look at it if you want to know what my description actually is not as good as it could be, so perhaps have a look at the thread.

These particular biker scouts are made in Mexico, and they're made either released as nearly leddy, variants, or they're released on kenakards but kenamadimexico cards. So these are found on both. They can be picked up loose with the standard biker scale blaster, which would have been packaged with them on the kenamadimexico cards, which were sold in the States. Alternatively, there is a lily-leddy blaster, which came with some of them.

It's identical to the kenablaster, but the mould is ever-slightly different. It's a darker colour and it's also got a letter, I think, in which you'll probably come in and correct me if this is wrong, but I think it's either got the letter A, B or D on the moulds of the blaster. Because these blasters only came with the actual lily-leddy-carded biker scouts rather than the made in Mexico ones, which were sold in the USA, these blasters are far rarer than the kenabilin. If you can get one of these figures with the blaster, you've got a pretty rare and a pretty valuable thing.

It's something that people like to try and get these blasters to complete lily runs, and they are a lot rarer. The lily-biker scalter could probably pick one of them for about £25, so that is substantially more than the weapon that's a lot more difficult to get. And I think the weapon, the last I saw, one of the seals, one of the 35lb mark, so it's 10 to about 50-55 pounds for one that's complete. Has anybody got one of these short-mouth biker scouts in their collection?

I've got one but I don't have the weapon. I'm not really that full-sport the weapon actually, I don't know why. The final loose figure that I'd like to talk about this month is a power droid that Rob E. Marsh picked up.

Not particularly rare figure, he's got one in a nice condition I think for £8.50, but the real thing that made this stand out to me was the seller, obviously bought this figure in Italy, or it came virally Italy, and sent him the card back with it without him asking for it or even advertising it as part of the sale. And it's turned up with a Harvard 20-back card back. Now, Harvard were the distributor for Star Wars figures in Italy, and these card backs are pretty funky things. So these are at Harvard cards, pretty similar to Star Wars cards, but they feature the Italian Gerstellari, I don't know if I've absolutely butchered that or not, but that's how it looks to me.

And yeah, they're a little bit different, a little bit unique, and this card back that the guy basically gave him is certainly worth a lot more than the £8.50 that he paid for the power droid. A couple of people put valuations on it, and they were saying around about 100 bucks if you deal in American money. So some were about maybe 70 quid, if my quick maths is correct. So that was a bit of a bargain, he swapped it out because he doesn't collect foreign card backs, and he's traded it for some die cast, I think.

So he got a nice little bonus with his purchase. I think you're missing the best part of this, I would go then, because when he put it up in the valuation thread, Jason Smith, Mr. Potatoy, he said, yeah, like that, it's really nice, except that I think it was being made, but then Fungster, who's a one power droid collector, he then came on a bit later on and was good at it. I really like this card, it's a shame I missed it, and then Jason stepped aside for Frank to complete the trade, which I think is the best part of it, because that really shows the community's food.

It was nice, I think what happened there was Frank had helped Rob P. Marsh with the valuation of this particular card back, because he had no idea what it was worth. I think he was quite surprised to have got it, and I got the impression maybe that he wasn't particularly familiar with the Harbour card back, and it just sort of turned out. So he'd been speaking to Frank about what Frank thought the value might be amongst other people, and I think in the meantime, Jason expressed an interest in it, as we, well, don't have any of you guys know, and I think we've got Jason coming up quite soon, as an interview guest, so we'll talk about it in the future, but Jason's quite a good card back collector.

Jason expressed an interest, and I think Robert misread that not only was Frank helping in value, but Frank was also very, very interested. So basically Jason said to Frank, if you've been interested in it first, no problem, I'll step aside, I'll do the honourable thing, and it was nice, because it restores your faith in the collecting community a little bit. The fact that people are still willing to help people out in this day and age, and yeah, it was really nice. So Frank's ended up with the card back, and Rob has ended up with, as I said before, some die cast vehicles that he was after, and Jason ends up with a load of karma, and I'll sit to my bike, I'm a drink for doing the honourable thing when we get to Fars from.

The next item I'd like to talk about is a pickup that Benny 100 has got, and it's a die cast land speeder. Now we spoke in a previous podcast about a few of these men on card die casts, and it got quite a good response, people seem to quite like that, and we'd also spoken a little bit about the foreign distributors, the Clippers, the Palatoids, and the Kenners. And then this guy crops up, and it's a Takara land speeder. So it's Japanese, the card back looks really, really cool, because they've taken a lot of the text and translated into Japanese.

Now I tried to do a little bit of research on these, and I basically discovered that the world of Japanese die cast is quite a murky and a very difficult to understand thing. As far as I can see, Takara released three Kenner die cast vehicles on these Takara backs, which were basically Kennabacks, but they translated most of the text through into Japanese, and that was the land speeder, the X-Wing, and the TIE fighter, so these are all available on this livery. But at the same time, they were also producing a line of die cast toys under the Zetka space alloy branding, and these are some really weird Japanese collectible items. There's a few figures, and there's a few vehicles, but they're sort of like solid pieces, and the Zetka land speeder, and they do a version of the land speeder.

It sort of looks like something you might expect to find on a trophy. It's this funny solid gold land speeder that looks like it might be at home on a monopoly board or something like that. It's a bit bigger, but I couldn't find anything out about these Kenner Takara die cast, like this land speeder. The reason it caught my eyes, because I do quite like these die casts, and on this card back, it looked completely funky, but I'm a little bit of a loss as to these things.

So I don't know if any of you can sort of feel me in about these die cast. Yeah, Ben, I've been looking at this Takara die cast, and it is a funny, and you described it as a funky card back. I agree with that. Two things I'm going to know, it's almost to the text is in Japanese, except on the front, it has die cast metal in high impact plastic.

So it's interesting that the kept art is English, but yet they managed to translate all the other bits into Japanese. So I wonder if there were perhaps some Japanese kids who went away with what that meant when they were young and perhaps the thought, I wouldn't have this means fantastic. The gaggle from the new movies or something, like those lines would be interesting to see what the thought about. But the second thing is the card back.

Now if you have a look at the card back on the Kenner and the Palatoy, the advertised the X-Wing, the tie fight, and the land speeder. Well, the advertised them is the large plastic jaggles, and it was only when I looked at the to carve out card back again, because I thought for a second, the car back didn't do those large plastic jaggles. If you look at the to carve a card back, they actually advertised the X-Wing, the tie fight that, and the land speeder, but they are advertised in the die cast jaggles, which is different from the Palatoy and Kenner ones. And it's very noticeable if you look at the land speeder, so if you look at the card back and if you look at the land speeder on the to carve out, you can see Luke in 3BO sitting in the cockpit.

But then if you jump to the Kenner card back or the Palatoy card back, it's not enough jaggle. So obviously I can't read the Japanese in the back there, but it's very obvious that they were referring to the die cast jaggles and not the large plastic jaggles, because they went available, mind blue and all what. I'm playing that really interesting. It is, as you first know, I was just going to add that we always think that cross borders and cross countries with product translations.

I was 100%, but I mean, you think some of the largest companies make a complete mess of this stuff. So I mean, think of it as a game where I was younger called Continental Circuit, and I made a mess of this filing, and I got translated as Continental Circus. And all the games that were released over here got called Continental Circus. Now I could work out what on earth a computer game about a racing car had to do with a circus, but it was just a misfilling of the Japanese translation got messed up.

So the game and all its variants got released over here with a stupus venom mistake, which wasn't actually a stupus venom state as such, but it looked stupid. So it might be something along those kind of things that you end up with this particular differentiation, because things didn't translate very well. One thing that I'd say about these Japanese, I mean, we've looked at a bit about the Takara and the Tusguda, and also we spoke a bit about the poppy line of Japanese. But of all the licensees who had Star Wars distribution licenses in foreign countries, I think it's fair to say the Japanese probably used the most artistic license in the things that they created with their license and the changes that they made to the packaging and the sort of weird and random things that they produced.

Yeah, that was the same with the movie posters as well. So they did seem to have a different sort of license out there. A lot of the artwork used for the promotion of Star Wars in the Far East seems very different to that that was used in the West. So I'm not sure the reason behind that, why the reason behind that is maybe they did a look at their audience support, that their audience had different sort of needs or desires or interests or whatever.

But yeah, they did seem that there is a whole different way of marketing and advertising Star Wars in the East than it was to us. A lot of you might have also noticed that on the latest acquisitions forum, a large amount of Iain, Ithavaka Iain's house has appeared in various people's hands, as he had his house sale quite recently. So a lot of people did quite well out of that, a lot of Oxplaise and some nice loose figures and things like that. I did notice that Jedi Masters had picked up quite a nice R2-T2 with a pop-up lightsaber.

Now, I thought these might have been in demand and as Iain is the man that people normally go to for these sort of things, I'm quite surprised that Rich when you are the one of those. The landscape here? No, the R2-T2 with a pop-up lightsaber. Oh yes, yes I was.

Did he not think to ask Iain before he left to America? I did, I asked Iain quite a few times, but every time I asked Iain for an R2-pop saber, he never used to have one and he said that he actually wanted one for himself for his own collection. So, you know, Iain has been in the back of a lot of these things, his head's off to his day, so he's a busy guy. He's obviously brought up a bulk collection and then there's one if he had in the end, I've just been missed off.

But I will forgive him one day eventually. I spoke to Chris actually the other day and apparently Iain was giving R2-D2 with a pop-up lightsaber away to every single person that came. He had so many of them in between out in the back garden smashing out head to the hammer. He was just giving them away.

Yeah, that's probably my look at it. Iain, just before you go to America, please, please send me the ATAT I want. I'm desperate for it. I'm desperate for the all cheap ATAT.

I'm building an ATAT for a friend for Christmas and it's getting far too close. He asked about four months ago. So, please appeal for Iain. He left last week.

Oh no, Iain, come back. He's gone, Pete. I'm going to make you even more sick if you fucking try a suitcase full of yak faces with him. Which is the only currency he's going to use in America.

He said he didn't need dollars. He just used yak faces. Well, no, because everybody had one. He didn't sound so many cheeky cats.

But Iain in America, yeah. Seven in ATAT. I'll come and get you. The final thing I wanted to talk about in this month's latest acquisitions is a post by Dennis Sargiza.

And a similar situation to myself. Where he and his wife have just had a little girl called Anora born on the 23rd of September. So, I think on behalf of the podcast, I'd like to say congratulations on your latest arrival, Dennis. I mean, here, here.

Who's got the cutest baby skin competition next month? Yeah, no, I've got the cutest baby. I've never met my children. I have no idea where they are.

They must be plastered all around different parts of the globe. No, I was thinking, because Ben's had a child and Ben's had a child. Maybe we could splice his place some revenge on the sift, baby music. And then Ben would be happy when complaining about the rave music that we used to book end his section last month.

So, you know, if someone was baby music this month. I wonder if we could find the baby music but in rave form. No. No.

No. No. No. No.

No. Okay, that was always the latest note by Teddy Films. I'd just like to say a big thank you for Teddy Films for allowing us to use that song. I think they've done a fantastic job on it and they kind of reflects what the majority of our first generation Star Wars fans feel.

If you want to find out more about the amazing stuff that Teddy Films do, you can find them at www.teddyfilms.com. That's T-E-D-D-I-E Films.com. Right, I want to give a huge one welcome to one of my popular members on the Star Wars Forum UK. He goes under his pseudo name of Jedi Masters.

We're here with Chris Mann, Steven. Good evening, Chris. Good evening, Stuart. And also joining me for Chris's interview is the podcast member, Rich Hutcherson.

Rich, you're right. Yeah, I'm fine. Welcome, Chris. Have a good night.

Yeah, great. Thanks. Chris, back on the on the daily podcast, we spoke about your fantastic achievement in the London Marathon. It was also just finished as we were recording.

So first of all, I want to say huge congratulations. You seem to do a fair amount of charity work I've noticed when I've been stalking you everything to do with you. And you often do it. You did London Marathon for a charity called Wrath.

What is that? It's a charity that is quite close to home for me. It's basically a sense of restoration of appearance and function trust. So basically they work a lot with firefighters, army, personnel, burns victims.

They basically do anything with repair, appearance basically. So burns, cancers, skin abnormalities, anything like that. My wife's got a burn from a railroad to a wrist and I also did have a friend who worked for them. She's just left the charity actually, but I have a friend who worked there.

So I felt like raising some money for them. I do have to do all your charity work. You always do it for Wrath, yeah? Well, that was the second thing I've done for them.

I've done my bamber for them as well. I started to do it for them and I did pledge the raise quite a large amount of money for them over the years to come in the June of, I think you guys know, £250,000. It's a big goal, but it was one at a time that would just keep me going. But unfortunately circumstances in my life have changed.

So I am now hoping to raise money for a different charity. I was welcome to it, Wrath, and they could understand my position. Obviously, I'd love to see you with a tash actually. Did you grab a bit of one?

I did. If I do it again, I'll do it totally differently. It started off with a goatee. I'm never too sure what I'd have loved with a tash.

I know my wife's never keen on them. So to start off with it was a goatee. Junior Chub, Chris on the forum, basically said to me, I have to turn out to file this from with a Galon handlebar, you know, a massage. For me, I've got one of the best pictures ever of me with Daz and Duncan with my handlebar massage.

I love it. I've forced the picture. It is on the forum somewhere. I've got the two, Dave's Facebook page for his file, this is on there as well.

I was going to mention that I think the first time I saw you was at file this from, and I remember the ad that most of the time in the booty. But did you keep going for a while? I've done the whole vamber. I don't think you got video bit straight.

Where did you? No, I did for a week after that. The missus had to go. I've tried to do it again any day.

It was quite fun. Next time I'd maybe look at not handlebar massage to something different, you know, just go crazy. It was quite fun. Well, no, Vambers only about five weeks away, though.

Yeah, exactly. I know it's quick enough. Obviously, with your marathon running, you've got to be fairly fit to even just finish it. Now, obviously looking for your thing, your items and your Facebook and everything to get some interview questions sorted.

I came across at the end of June that you started the Insanity workout. Did you complete it? No, in simple words. No, it is insane.

It does give up to its title. It's very reparstive. You have to say that. It does give it going.

And J is on the floor and will back me up on this because he actually completed it. It's hard going and you've got to have time to do it. I basically stopped because I've got two young kids. My wife doesn't get in from work till six, half, six in the evening.

And I was just getting frustrated trying to find the time to do it basically. So, you know, rather than cause arguments in the family, I just decided to knock on the head for now. So I will go back to, and I'm determined to complete it. But yeah, no, I have to stop it unfortunately.

Let's move this interview on then to what we are calling then, so I will. First of all, the first things first that you noticed when you research you is it. You're a forum member from 2006, which is from the start. How have you come across the forum?

I signed up on the original one, which was then lost when he was transferring over to a new database or new systems or something. And then I, for what I can remember it was a long time ago, from what I can remember, I just saw some networks that were on certain ebay auctions. I can't think of those auctions. They were.

They may have been egg-genized. And it was just about directing you to the new, oh, which was when the original one disappeared. So when I saw them, I put the 10 across and signed back up again. It was very quiet for years when it was with you.

It was probably a few years from 2006 where I didn't even look on the forum. It was only in the last three to four years. I got heavily involved. Chris, what do you think has been the biggest change in the forum since 2006?

It's evolved a lot. A number of members, the people that are on it. You see forum members that are posting regularly and they disappear. It's changing like that, which is very little bit because you think, oh, they're post-camps quite high and you're really trying to understand they disappeared.

But it's also the format. Just the way it's run over the years. It's changing a good way. It's all next things.

Just run as they are. We can have a bit of banter on there. Sometimes it's a bit over the top. I prefer it that way.

At least you can have that banter and have a joke. You can always say what you want. If you do go overboard, there's plenty of people that let you know. And I think it runs well that way rather than being policed.

You can't do anything unless it goes through a certain protocol. That's why it's a very well run forum. Please announce that the day June is actually made up of a few events and that's a couple weeks. It's not.

Yeah, you pop back up and we can go and remember Q. Yes. It's nice to see these guys coming back. Thinking back to 2006 and to the forum now, did it have the same amount of sub-forms and sub-threats with it always got top-exceptions and all the line-lights action stuff?

It's difficult to say back then I signed up and then disappeared for a couple of years. I really don't know. I think it's probably the same. There's always been obviously a vintage section in modern.

I'm pretty sure there was an off topic but the feedback and the sales sections evolved over years just to give. That's why people more than I do, what people like and trust instead of trust the buyer. I think he's pretty much I said the same. Do you post them in any of the other forums?

I'll try it on our rest. I don't know. I'll just don't get on with it. Same with Tig really.

I posted a few bits on there. I kind of made a use that one for reference guides. So I'll just call him. He's my home.

He's where all my post needs done really. I noticed he actually only said he's posted away from 3000 posts. Yeah, I know. When I was a dabbling, I went for you guys.

He'll be making an effort. I think that's the case I reckon that'll be gone. I look at it if he smiles like Liam does. On every single thread.

That's the one. You could be and you might be. I think that's the secret. Is it just a smile?

Yeah, so if you smile, get your post going up and give your name and green. I thought I was right. You're a postman. Oh yeah.

Do you know what the pastel's like? They might just have that mock figure in there. They need to technically handle it. I do.

I do. I do. I've just read him another thread from a Hallatois 78 or somebody about eBay and Rawmail. I don't know which one I hate worse.

Yeah. I've been in the business eight years now and I'll admit I've seen some horrible things just away. They're paid to deliver a parcel to look after it. Things do happen sometimes.

They're out of your control. You can't help it. But you get parcels in the office that just crush the pieces. Especially from China.

I don't know what they do with their parcels, but they just watch them. But no, I do. I take care of everything I handle. I'm not just saying that to be a good guy.

I'll build up my job. I'm proud of being a postee. I know we all have stuff coming through the post that essentially worth hundreds, plus six thousand pounds. It's nice to get it in the condition that you've seen it in a picture.

I think I must be forced to read some of the stories because you know yourself. Every organization has good and bad work as in it all seems to be the bad work as it gets reflected in the organization. I'm going to stick up for you Chris because in the 15 years of sending parcels to Royal Mail, I've only had one go missing and I've never had one of my damaged. I'm sitting in the praises of Royal Mail.

I've got a question for you. We've been leading up to this for the last couple of shows now. Minn on cards. Do you think that now is the time to stop sending Minn on cards through the post?

What do you think is getting damaged? Do you know them breaking out with the balls? And I'm not saying that postees are not looking after them properly. To me, it doesn't matter how well you're buff them.

These balls are getting sore for agile. It's getting dangerous. It does mean it doesn't mean that you guys know I mainly collect mocks. So every time I buy a mock, it is a nervous way for it to turn up.

The only way to get it is you've got to go back to the old tradition of me ups. Just everywhere. All the time. You have to wait that little bit longer for that card if you want to pick it up in person.

It's a hard one. I think Ed Jedd has said in the forum recently about putting a band around the bubble. I've thought about buying polystyrene blocks and cutting out the shape of the bubble and putting it inside the star case. It's a bit of a bit of protection.

But even with that, if the bubble is fragile, it's fragile. It's kind of potentially break. It's getting close to a time where we're just going to have to stop sending mocks on. You're flossing in the weekend.

You'll be loading a car up with a few mocks. Please don't know if I have to get back safely. I'm going to Ian's and I'm trying hard not to load my car up. I've been to Ian's a couple of times now and his collection is fantastic.

It's just the quantity of what he's got in condition. He's been used up and breaking stuff. Some of his mocks you can be with him. He's the mens' what he's got.

He's said that he's got to sell it. But life is life you've got to do. He's been realistic. It's probably going to be harder to take it all over there than it is to sell it.

But you've been in America. You should go to pick some of that stuff up. Again, I'm reasonably cheap. I would imagine cheap.

But yeah, I would come away with a couple of bits. I say couple of loops later. Glad you bought that up, Chris. I'm after a favour.

I've been able to go down to Ian's house. Can you have to wear a helmet? Can you ask Ian? Does he have a spare outfit?

I'll ask him. I've already got a list of grinders. If you mention Ritchie, he won't give you it. If you do get it, you may bring it to this one.

I've seen your conversation on the floor about it. I know what it's about. Right. Let's go back then.