Star Wars Cantina Creatures Set of 4 Prototype First Shots (Kenner, 1978)....

Description

Star Wars Cantina Creatures Set of 4 Prototype First Shots (Kenner, 1978). The wretched hive of scum and villainy on Tatooine wouldn't be quite the same without this crew. The set includes the Blue Snaggletooth figure, Greedo, Walrusman, and Hammerhead. Kenner altered the Blue Snaggletooth action figure directly after its release as the figure had been sculpted at the wrong height. While first shots of any vintage Star Wars figure are desirable, prototypes of Blue Snaggletooth, in particular, are highly desired by collectors.
Each of these four action figures differs slightly from the final production toys, with slight differences in plastic color and/or detail. The figures pre-date addition to the final molds as none have copyright information or date stamps. This grouping of four rare, painted first shot action figures were used by Kenner and their Asian vendors to assess the quality of tooling and their paint applications prior to mass-production.
The provenance of this grouping traces back to the collection of Stephen Gemperline, a former Kenner employee. Gemperline worked in Kenner's reliability and safety test lab during the early years of Star Wars. This is the only complete set of Cantina creatures that he kept from his time at Kenner. The figure set is encased in acrylic along with Stephen Gemperline's business card and each is graded individually as listed below. The set comes with a Certificate of Authenticity from Collectible Investment Brokerage (CIB).
Hammerhead - AFA 85 NM+
Greedo - AFA 70 EX+
Snaggletooth - AFA 80 NM
Walrusman - AFA 75 EX+/NM

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