| Rancor Keeper Carded Production Sample With First Shot Figure | |
| Carded production samples were created primarily to gauge the appeal of the figure in its final packaging. As is evident from the blister's squared-off bottom corners, this Rancor Keeper figure has been mounted on a proof card, an attribute which by itself makes the piece interesting. What makes this item truly cool, however, is that it features a very early injection-molded example of the Rancor Keeper figure. By the tail-end of the Star Wars era, Kenner is thought to have begun creating some first shots in-house rather than leaving them exclusively in the hands of overseas vendors. In doing so, they employed cheap, short-term aluminum molds, into which a milky-white, rather low-quality plastic was typically injected. I believe this Rancor Keeper to be one such figure. It features a greater degree of detail than later production figures, and displays a hint of white plastic material, visible in several areas just below the figure's hand-painted surface. |
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| Description by: | Ron Salvatore |
| Photo: | Rob Johnson, Jon Peck |
| From the collection of: | Jon Peck |
| Country: | United States |
| Film: | Return of the Jedi |
| Licensee: | Kenner |
| Year: | 1983 |
| Category: | Prototypes / Action Figure Related |