We continue our look at the top ten most pricey and rare Star Wars action figures. Check out numbers 1 through 5 by clicking here!

6. Yak Face (Power of the Force, 1985)

Once all three original Star Wars movies were over, and all three accompanying lines of toys had been completed, Kenner continued the Star Wars series of action figures with 1985’s ‘Power of the Force’ line. This included 36 additional figures (22 of which we re-releases), and it addressed many auxiliary characters, as well as main characters in different outfits. Little did they know that every character who appeared in the background of a scene for a millisecond would eventually be getting a complex backstory and an action figure from Hasbro. Each POTF figure included a collectible coin, in addition to the usual accessories. While line was canceled due to declining sales, a 37th figure had already begun production.

This figure was ‘Yak Face’, who is also known in proper Star Wars canon as Saelt-Marae - who appeared for three seconds in Return of the Jedi. As companies are still wont to do when there’s a production oversight or a change in distribution plans, Kenner sent all of their Yak Face figures to Canada and Europe. In the days before the information superhighway, this was a big deal, as these were rendered nearly inaccessible (and were simply unheard of) by the average American kid. We were Yakless, or Faceless, or something.

As a result, a loose Yak Face will get you about $150 if you still have the staff that came with him (which only came with the Canadian edition), and a sealed Yak Face recently sold for $2250 at auction, which is the most respect that a guy named ‘Yak Face’ will ever get.

I have a personal connection to Yak Face, as I accidentally stood next to a life-sized statue of him during New York Comic Con, while a friend very vocally described our physical similarities. Within earshot of a very attractive girl. Dear Yak Face, I feel your pain.

7. Luke Skywalker as Stormtrooper (Power of the Force, 1985)

Another entry from the 1985 ‘POTF’ line, Luke as a Stormtrooper proved a little hard to find because of the fading interest that retailers had in the Star Wars line, without movies to back it up. When Luke was actually found, there was a special interest in him as he was the only figure in the POTF line that came from ‘A New Hope’, and not one of the sequels.

As a side note, this POTF line also included a mail-away Anakin, which came packed in a plastic baggie from Kenner, which is worth about $100 bucks.

8. Vlix

Vlix wasn’t officially from the main Star Wars line, but instead a character from the short-lived Droids cartoon. He’s worth including as he’s regarded as the rarest of all released Star Wars-related figures.

When the Droids line of toys was canceled, Kenner had already sculpted and molded Vlix, planning to include him in the next assortment. Instead of letting the expensive tooling go completely to waste, the molds were sold to a Brazilian company called Glasslite, who proceeded to make the figure - and distribute it only in Brazil. Those guys have all the luck - they have nuts, sexily waxed women, and all of our Vlix figures.

Even a loose Vlix will net you around $4000, and a carded Vlix will probably put you through college a few times. I can only wonder if some Brazilian grandmother is cleaning out her attic and putting Vlix out at a tag sale at this very moment…

9. Anakin-to-Darth Vader Hasbro Press Kit

… which I’m counting as one figure.

Numbers nine and ten in the countdown are the only two on the list that were made after 1990. In fact, the Anakin-to-Darth Vader was released very recently in 2005 - but ONLY to Hasbro’s media guests in their Toy Fair showrooms. I’m still kinda cheesed off that they didn’t give me one. I love me some Vader, and I’d even make an exception to having a young Anakin into my collection, but that Vader could have been the difference between living at home for a few years and paying off my college loans immediately.

The rare press kit included a figure of Anakin Skywalker on a circular base, which rotated into a figure a Darth Vader. The figure was packed along with various press materials, all in a handsome box. While the initial secondary market price of the kit was in the many-thousands, it’s now dipped below $400. And I still don’t have one.

So close to financial solvency, guys. Woulda made braving the sweat-storm of fanboy armpits almost worth it.

10. Freeze-frame Weequay (Power of the Force, 1990s)

The final figure in this list is the thoroughly unlovable Weequay, a skiff guard for Jabba the Hutt, and all-around gross-lookin’ guy. Weequays are a dime a dozen are are pretty worthless when they’re loose. so the big difference with THIS Weequay only comes into play in the packaging, making for another moment of Star Wars collecting completism insanity.

See, this ugly guy from the ‘Power of the Force 2’ line from the mid-90s included a ‘freeze frame’, which was a gimmicky projectable slide that was included with a handful of the figures. Think ‘family vacation photos’, except your family is really ugly and fights in space a lot. Only a handful of these ‘Freeze Frame’ Weequays were released before they were repackaged without the slide, on a much more common green  card with a shiny picture of his ugly mug. A sealed Weequay, on a US card (none of that tri-lingual foreign junk here), with the slide, will run about $400, and an opened ‘Quay is just about the saddest thing I ever did see.

There are a few more uncommon Star Wars figures out there, but none so rare and treasured as these guys - which are likely to pop up in any given attic or tag sale by folks who just want to clean out their attic and don’t give two damns about eBay or us nerds. Keep on hunting!

I was born around the right time, I have an affinity for science fiction, I’ve got an eBay account — but why don’t I collect Star Wars?

The first Star Wars toy I got was a sandspeeder, circa 1978, and nearly every birthday or Christmas after that point included Star Wars of some sort. I still have the sandspeeder around here someplace. My parents, the source of my packrat mentality, stored my and my siblings’ toys for decades, waiting for the eventual day that we come and pick up our stuff and take it to our own basements. A year or two ago, I did exactly that.

I’ve gone through all of it, sorted the broken from the intact, the bad from the good, and figured out which weapons go with which figures. Much to most action-figure collectors’ dismay, they’re not lined up on a shelf. I’ve got a couple boxes in the basement, loosely organized by type.

I sold a bunch of them on eBay. There was even a nice Weequay, still in its original package, that went on auction. A couple of the complete figures went under glass in our antique booth. My wife took all the Ewoks and claimed them for herself; they guard her computer monitor. The rest are lying around in boxes, waiting to be sold.

A lot of the recent interest in 80s artifacts is an attempt by those of us in our late 20s to early 30s who miss the items from their childhood and now have the money to buy them. GI Joe, Rainbow Brite, He Man, My Little Pony, Transformers: besides still being in production, they all have a new following for their old incarnations. People all over, in the US and overseas, and competing with their dollars to buy back their childhood, collect the toys that they broke or lost so long ago.

I admit, I’m a big packrat - I keep darn near everything. I have boxes of receipts, piles of computer junk, boxes of stuff I don’t know what it is but can’t part with. The toys, however, don’t even hold as much value as the box of PC power cords. Those I might have a use for. The toys, not nearly so.

My real collection is up on bookshelves, old leatherbound tomes; it’s the century-old oil paintings on the wall. It’s bits and pieces of ephemera, one-of-a-kind works of human art. The items in my collection may be old, but there’s no replacing them. Age and uniqueness has given the items a value, maybe not priceless, but worthy of being on a shelf for display.

The leftover toys, the rare ones that actually survived, are deserving of a garage sale. I played with them for years, I had my fun, I don’t need to buy that back again. Why do I need them now? I can’t even play with them like I did in my childhood; that’d ruin the value. A new-old toy, like a genuine tin windup from the 50s or a composite doll from the 1910s, is old in a good way. The toys from the 80s, mass-produced by the thousands and marketed with half-hour cartoons, are meant to be tossed out, disposable items in a fast-moving market.

A lot of my Star Wars toys aren’t really collector quality, so I probably won’t find buyers for them. I don’t particularly need to keep them, but if I hold onto them long enough they may find their way into a young collector’s hands years from now. The day will come when they will be revered as antiques, not as leftovers from a person’s forgotten youth. Until then, I won’t be displaying them. My Star Wars figures will be unceremoniously dumped into a box and stacked in the basement. I don’t need them; it’s not what I’m into right now.