Star Wars Luke Skywalker Engineering Pilot With Prototype Double Telescoping Light Saber (Kenner, 1977)....

Description

Star Wars Luke Skywalker Engineering Pilot With Prototype Double Telescoping Light Saber (Kenner, 1977). While it is difficult to choose a single character as the center of the original Star Wars trilogy, the case can certainly be made for Luke Skywalker. As one of the original 12 figures released by Kenner in 1978, 'Farmboy' Luke was a must-have for any child's adventures. As one of the most coveted production rarities, the original double telescoping light saber remains in high demand due to its smaller production run and the fragility if its design. This Engineering Pilot (EP) Luke Skywalker is a pre-production action figure that originated from inside Kenner's Test Lab. It first reached collector's hands in in Ohio in 2016 when former Kenner employee Dewy Schumate's estate was auctioned.
The rare pre-production action figure from Kenner's Early Bird release includes a prototype, translucent Double Telescoping (DT) lightsaber that was paired with it as Kenner sought to de-bug teething issues with the weapon prior to shipping blister cards. It is one of just a handful of Engineering Pilots to include a prototype saber that was definitively added inside of Kenner. While other collector owned Engineering Pilot figures have the rare prototype saber, they are believed to be paired with the figures after the fact and not originally inside the Kenner building.
Engineering Pilots such as this Luke Skywalker were used by Kenner to assess the product designs safety, durability, and reliability as part of the Quality Assurance process during the vintage Kenner Star Wars years. This testing took place prior to the availability of the action figure in stores or promotions. Engineering Pilots are identifiable by the internal Kenner notations on body parts - usually under their feet and by associated provenance or differences.
The figure is encased in acrylic and graded an AFA 60 EX. It comes with a Certificate of Authenticity by Collectible Investment Brokerage (CIB) which has been authenticated and signed by Tom Derby.
This guaranteed authentic example has rock solid, public provenance, which is extremely rare for a pre-production figure of this type, making this an incredible artifact of toy history.

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