This interview with Steve Denny was conducted by Dan Flarida and John Wooten on November 2nd and 17th, 2013. It’s a long read, so grab your favorite beverage, sit back, and enjoy the interview!
Dan- First of all, let me just tell you how excited I am that you agreed to sit down with us for this interview. We’ve been friends for a long time, and I have always enjoyed hearing your stories and early collecting adventures. We always knew we wanted to get them on record at some point, to share them with the rest of the collecting community. The visitors to KennerCollector.com are really going to enjoy hearing about the role you played in the history of the Star Wars collecting hobby. I don’t know if you realize it or not, but the name Steve Denny is legendary in many Star Wars collecting circles. There are so many prized items in collectors hands all of the world right now because of your hard work of tracking those items down and bringing them to the market.
Let’s jump right in.
Here’s something I have always wondered. You have used the name “Slats” in your email address forever. Where does that come from?
Steve- That was my dad, he tried to hang that on me. That was his dad’s nickname. He lived down there in Elsmere Kentucky. That’s the only name he went by according to dad. He was a tall skinny guy see. Slats like bed slats. He tried to hang it on me and it never did stick. So when I did my email, I thought well, in honor of him I’ll try to keep it going. That’s it. Never did pan out though.
D- Interesting, I always thought Slats was some kind of proof card or box flat reference of some kind.
D- You have been a part of the Star Wars collecting hobby for a long time. Tell us a little bit about your history as a collector. Did you collect anything growing up? Was Star Wars the first area of collecting you got into? As a kid were you into comics, sports cards, anything?
S- No, I wasn’t into anything as a kid. No comics or anything like that. I never really read all that well. I can’t remember collecting anything. What started it all, was my boy Kyle wanted some Star Wars figures. We would always go to the Ferguson Hills Flea Market in Western Hills (Cincinnati).
D- Was this during the Kenner Star Wars era?
S- This was around 1985. There was still stuff available at the stores. We saw the Star Wars movies, and I liked them. There was something about the lettering on that logo. So I graphed out the Star Wars logo, and painted it on a sign. Took me like 20 hours. Put stars in the background, the whole nine yards. And for some reason it just stuck to me. I don’t know what it is, just the way Star Wars sits, it just caught me. I thought to myself “this is pretty cool.” Anyway, my son wanted some figures and we’d go to the flea market all the time, so we started buying figures for him. There would be one guy selling them for 50 cents, and the guy right next to him would be selling them for $5. I’d confront these guys, and say “well what’s the deal here? The guy right next to you is selling them for 50 cents, why are you charging $5.” He said, “well, they’re collectibles. These are going to be hot.” So we did a little research, I sent away for some catalogs from some guys in the Starlog magazine that were selling Star Wars. So I got their list and I am checking them and thinking man, these guys are selling these for $10-15.
D- So right away something just clicked seeing the various prices for the different characters. I never thought about the Star Wars collectibles market starting out that early.
S- Yeah, different prices for characters, ships, playsets, you know. So I thought I had always wanted to start my own little business at home, so why not a mail order thing. So I told my boy, here’s what we are going to do. We started going to Toy R Us, Children’s Palace, and I bought the best boxes I could find.
D- So these were toys still on the shelves. You were buying what are now vintage toys, new at retail?
S- Still on the shelves, or behind the shelves in the backrooms. I’d ask the manager if he had any more and he’d take me in the back. Toys R Us had like a cheap wall, and you could see stuff stacked up so high. I remember the one had Rancors stacked to the ceiling. $2.90 apiece. So I went back and got the best boxes. Got maybe 10 or 12. They must have had 50 there that day. I could have bought them all. I only bought the ones in the nice boxes. Which I regret doing. I should have bought more of them.
D- Well, everybody thinks I wish I would have. At the time I am sure you were thinking you had a fixed budget to play around with this stuff. Even though you think or know it’s going to be something valuable, you still may not have the amount of money you need to just sit on 50 Rancors. Same thing happens today to speculators.
S- Yeah, really. Well, I knew it was going to sell. After a while, I didn’t worry about it. If it was Star Wars, I just bought it if it was a decent price. Most of the prices I paid were flea market prices. I’d go in and buy a collection from somebody and get a whole table of stuff for a 100 bucks. I’d see one piece worth a $100 and that’s what I would go after. I’d think, well I can’t lose. There’s one piece I know worth the $100. I’d sell a couple of the pieces I really didn’t need or didn’t like, and eventually it started to build up. I had all this inventory.
D- How old were you when you first did that with your son? How old was your son?
S- Let’s see, Kyle was about 8 maybe. That was around 1986. My first sale was to Dawn Hughes. She sent me an $8 money order. She said “you got any more stuff?” I said yeah, and she said “well you need to make a catalog.” I was like, okay, I think I will. So I think I had just a few items in the first catalog I put out in 1988. It was stuff I started hoarding, by going to the stores.
D- Do you still have any of those for sale lists or catalogs you made?
S- Yeah, I have most of them. I called the catalog S.O.S. or Steve’s Odyssey Sales.
First issue of S.O.S. :
D- Where did that name come from?
S- I really don’t know how I came up with that. I wanted it to be something different, so I came up with Odyssey. I thought that meant different at the time. I don’t know. Haha. I’m not the smartest guy in the world. Haha. After the first issue, the name changed to Steve’s Odyssey Swaps.
Second issue of S.O.S.:
S- I made the sale lists to stay in touch with collectors, because they are where I got most of my information from. They were constantly updating me. Telling me this or that was hot. Or that they (Kenner) changed this. Or this comes in two different forms. There was a girl in New York named Tina Haynes. She helped me with a lot of information. I don’t know where she was getting it from, but she was a big collector. She was an early customer. Also Dawn Hughes. There was also a girl named Danielle Estes in Texas who bought a ton of stuff. So I would learn about these changes or variations and then knew they were collectible. So I would start watching for them. It would lead me to check things a little closer.
Third issue of S.O.S.:
D- Had you seen anybody else at this point doing what you were doing? Any collectors?
S- Just a couple guys, like the ones advertising in Starlog Magazine. There were probably a bunch of guys doing it, I just didn’t know who they were. As time went on, there were more and more guys getting in on it.
D- How did you get the word out about your catalog?
S- I had an ad in Lucasfilm Magazine for my for sale list. That was a great source man. I’d sometimes get 50 to 100 requests for the catalog.
Fourth issue of S.O.S.:
D- That’s really good.
S- Yeah, and the ad was only 10 bucks.
Steve and I look through some of the old requests for his S.O.S. mail order catalogs…
D- (looking at hand written letter requesting catalog) This is hilarious. “Going to work in special effects. Currently talking to George Lucas.”
S- Yeah, he’s going to be big time.
D- He says “I will probably want it all.”
S- Yeah, haha.
D- That is awesome, from 1993.
S- Yeah, some cool stuff.
D- Ben C****. I wonder if Ben is out there collecting still. It would be funny if he was still out there collecting and saw this. (Ben if you are reading this, we would love to hear from you!)
S- Cool if you could find him and say hey, remember writing this? Haha. Did you make it?
D- Another handwritten letter, “Here is a check for all of the money I received on my birthday.”
S- Haha.
D- Wow, that’s going to be awesome if some of these people are still collecting.
S- It would be.
D- Twenty years ago.
S- Yeah that’s the thing, I was going to bring my old ledger book where I kept track of all the sales and stuff. Just to go back and see the names on there.
D- “I hope that by the time I am 50 years old, I will have the best Star Wars collection in the US”
S- Haha it’s clever.
D- Here is another one right around when I started. 1992 is when I started collecting.
S- I have one from you here too.
D- From me?
S- Not one of the catalog requests, but I have a printout here from when you bought a proof card.
D- No way, wow.
S- DFlarida. Okay. What was it 98.
D- 1998. Ha, that’s awesome.
S- Yeah, it’s just uh. That’s when I started selling the proof cards. I’d put a list out.
D- 98, I was in college.
S- Really?
I look at the printout with the proof card I ordered.
D- You took me for $275, when I was trying to get my college education?
S- I got you didn’t I? Coming back at you now. It’s worked out pretty good. Look at this other one, eight Revenge (of the Jedi) cards for $800. I have more of these letters and orders at the house.
D- This guy even made up the postage for you.
S- Yeah, some of these guys were nice.
D- I love that you kept this stuff. There are so many things I wish I would have kept.
S- Yeah, it’s kinda neat to look back. I was looking through the ledger last night. When I first started I would make all these notes where I was giving everybody discounts, paying their postage. And I had the total of what I made. Even paying postage, I was still making money. I was happy with it you know. But just looking through the names, I was like I remember this girl. She was from Texas, and this other person was over here. You know, blah, blah, blah.
D- Here is an example. You have $2265 total, and then you gave them a discount. 10% discount. This guy bought a bunch of figures. These were all figures?
S- Uh huh.
D- Wow.
S- I was getting a lot of figures from a lady that used to work at Kenner, she was retired. She was going to the Kenner employee store and selling to me for like a buck and a half or something. I was getting Power of the Force and everything. I was supplying a lot of people with figures. It was building up their collection man. They’d buy 10, 15, 20 at a time. It was cool. We can talk about that later.
Steve continues looking at old for sale emails and letters.
S- I don’t remember half these people. Like this guy, Bill S**** Washington. Dave W****, now this guy was big time. Look at that one..
D- Here’s one, $5400 dollars. 45 Empire proofs. Wow.
S- $5400.. he bought a ton of stuff. I think he was in Colorado or somewhere.
Steve’s proof card for sale list from around 1996 or 1997:
S- A lot of guys here I remember. Rob Amantea, Richard Cox, Steppenwolf.
S- Here’s another guy from over in Singapore. Jon Foo. I think he was in Singapore. He bought some stuff. He was getting prototypes or something over there.
D- Modern stuff?
S- He said they’d just throw them in the dump and the guys would just go out and dig them up. He sent me some. Yeah it was the new stuff. It wasn’t anything old. Current stuff, the second line.
S- I have a letter from a kid that was sent to Kenner that I got through an employee or something, and he’s looking at one of the pictures on the little Kenner booklet, you know? And he says you got the ship upside down. It was like the TIE Fighter or something. Sure enough it was photographed upside down. He picked up on it. He was telling them how to correct it. Haha. I thought it was interesting. Kid’s pretty good.
D- Yeah, I know quite a few of these people.
S- Yeah, it’s funny to see the names and know they are still in the game.
D- (Reading one of Steve’s emails about a pending sale) “sorry about the wait, my car went up in flames six months ago.” Haha.
S- Haha
D- Broc Walker, this guy is still active.
S- Yep, I was in touch with him for a while.
D- John Peck, he’s still around.
D- (Reading from an email to Steve about a proof card payment) “For the almighty Rancor Keeper.”
D- (looking at an email to Steve) Isn’t that the dealer? Rachfal?
S- Yeah, Brian Rachfal. In California. For figures I think.
D- This is awesome man. There are so many things like this I wish I would have kept. I don’t know why I didn’t.
S- Yeah, I didn’t even keep them all. I just kept some of them. When I started selling the proofs again, I looked at some of the sales. I sold the first one to Mike Wolfe, guy I know over in Indiana. I saw him at the Dayton show. Showed him the proof cards and I had a couple sets of them. That was a set of 48, and I think I sold them for $50.
D- $50 for a complete set? When was that?
S- That was when I first got them. I think 92 or whatever it was. 50 bucks for a set of 48 Revenge cards. As soon as he got them, he got home and called me up that day or that week and asked “you got any more of those? I want to get another set.” And then after that, I started marking them up a little bit, and then I sold so many and I gave a set to Bob “Boba” Fisher, I gave him a set of practically everything. And then I just put them away. I didn’t fool with them.
D- Did you pretty much just automatically send Boba Fisher one of everything?
Unproduced Power of the Force Squid Head Proof Card
S- Yeah, I just like gave them to him you know. I may have charged him like 50 bucks for 200-300 proof cards. You know, just to cover postage or something. I let the proofs sit for a while and Fisher started looking through them. When he got the Power of the Force ones, he’s going “Steve, half of these weren’t even made!” Oh man I said, “why didn’t you tell me sooner. I already sold a bunch of them and gave them away in sets.”
D- So you didn’t even find the proof cards until that late? Early 90′s?
S- Yeah I can’t remember when it was. Probably 1990, 1992 or around there. We didn’t really start until like 86, which was maybe my first sale. When we went out and started buying stuff. But yeah, this guy that worked at Kenner called me up. I said, “how did you get my name?” He said “you send me a letter two or three years ago and I threw it in my desk drawer.” He said “they are going to tear out all of these computers, and I found all of this stuff sitting over in a corner.” That was all the proof cards. He says “I got about 1/3 of it and 2/3 was already gone in the trash.” So I went over and grabbed it. I couldn’t imagine getting that much more stuff. Haha.
Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi Proof Cards
D- So give me a scale of how many proof cards we are talking about, how many did you get?
S- He had about three or four large boxes full of smaller, flat boxes. They were just sticking up out of the boxes, packed and squished in. There might be 50 or more proofs to a box. Maybe a couple hundred smaller boxes. He had around 2,000 proof cards. And we just started going through them, separating them.
D- These proofs were from all the different movie titles?
S- All different titles. We separated them by movie title, and that was it. I didn’t go by backs or anything in the beginning.
Collection of Power Droid Proof Cards
D- So your original Kenner Star Wars proof card find was around 2,000 total?
S- Yes, around 2,000 proof cards. There were also other things in there that I didn’t even know were prototypes. There were large doll boxes for Empire Strikes Back. I didn’t know what was made at that time. My boy didn’t know either. I was looking through my ledger and I had sent some to a guy named Gene Rogalsky that Boba Fisher knew. He was down in South Carolina or somewhere and he had a thing called Star Pieces. It was in Toy Shop. And I sent him eighteen boxes for $100. And some of them were unproduced. And then he wanted more and I started wondering what’s going on. I also sent some to a guy in Arizona, his name was Ron Lewis. He was a big dealer. He was
Steve’s initial Star Wars Proof Card Count
cool, kinda like Fisher. I’d just send him stuff, he’d send me stuff. We wouldn’t even charge each other. I started asking around about the boxes, and Ron Lewis finally wrote me back saying “yeah, those are prototype boxes Steve.” I was like, oh thanks for telling me (sarcastic tone). But at least somebody told me.
D- How many of the 12″ Star Wars action figure box flats do you think you had?
S- I can’t remember. I had the Luke and the Leia prototype flat boxes. Pristine, brand new with the window and everything. Maybe five or six of each, maybe even up to eight. I traded some to a guy up in Dayton, Ohio or at least who I thought he was in Ohio. He told me he had all this stuff he had access to. He said there is a guy up there with a garage full of this stuff. And I’m going, “a garage, oh man I got to get this stuff.” So I sent him the boxes and he sent me a whole set of the large dolls out of the boxes. In trade for the flat boxes. As it turns out, it was Doug Cochran in Florida. He was a real shark. He was a real ..kind of a cutthroat type. So he ended up getting the boxes, and after that I slowed down on them. I saved a set for myself. I ended up selling them or Tom Derby took them. The only one I have left now is the Princess Leia Bespin. I still have that. I was trying to get the doll at one point. There was a guy out in St. Louis, he had the dolls. He had bought them from a lady that worked at Kenner. She lived up around Sharonville or maybe Indiana.
D- Was it Jane Abbott by any chance?
Unproduced Star Wars 12″ Princess Leia Bespin Doll Box Flat
S- Maybe, that sounds familiar. And he got it from her and I offered him a lot of money and he wouldn’t take it. That was around 1995. The girl I first started selling stuff to. Dawn Marie Hughes up in Washington. She should know Gus maybe. She was one of my first customers. She found out about this guy having the doll, so I got ahold of him. He ended up selling it to a big collector over in England. I think I offered him $2-3000. He ended up selling it for about $5,000 or something. He got a ton of money. It just got out of my league. Just got out of hand you know. I thought well, I’m not going to blow that much money now. I wanted to put it in a nice big display. Have the box in the back and then have the doll, it would have been cool. But, the doll box is still cool.
D- Let’s talk more about when you first got started buying the toys at retail. It’s interesting to hear that the toys were already collectible, right after the line had ended. At the end, the toys are sitting on shelves unsold because kids aren’t buying them, and there is this growing network of adults who are already starting to collect them. Everyone dreams of walking in to a modern day toy store and finding the vintage items still sitting on the shelf. Like at some small mom and pop store in the middle of nowhere. That’s the collector’s dream man!
S- That’s the thing. The stuff was everywhere. We went to all of the toy stores in the area. We even went to Louisville, KY. I asked a manager there, who was really nice, if he had any and he was like “yeah, come on back here.” I went back and there was six Imperial Shuttles sitting there for like $8.90 apiece. The stuff was just sitting in the back, they didn’t know what to do with it. They had a whole wall of Rancor Keepers hanging on the wall, and I said “nah, I don’t want any of those” Haha. They were 50 cents a piece on the Return of the Jedi card. We bought all the Imperial Shuttles. There was hardly had any room in the car. They were all in the back seat. Stuff in the front seat. My son could hardly get in the car. We’d just go around and just ask. Children’s Palace finally went out of business, but I was finding a lot of stuff there.
Yard Sale & Flea Market Finds Approx. 1987-88
D- Was there any sense of, I might get stuck with this stuff?
S- No, none at all. I was already starting to sell it.
D- If it said Star Wars on it, you were buying it.
S- If it said Star Wars, I just bought it. We weren’t losing. I would try to triple the price usually. Just to keep the cost of travelling around balanced out.
D- So you were tripling the price on everything equally? Did you have any sense of which toys were hot at that point? Anything selling faster than others were? Luke Stormtroopers moving faster?
S- Not really. In the beginning I didn’t even really want to fool with the figures just because there were so many of them. I remember one time of passing up a whole box of Boba Fetts on Return of the Jedi cards that some woman had. There were maybe 24 in the box. I’d never seen a box that small. It wasn’t a regular sized box. At 50 cents apiece, I passed them up! Haha. I didn’t even want them. Haha. Boba Fetts! Didn’t know why this woman had all the same ones. But that was early on you know, when we started. Well the killer was this guy I came across before I even got into Star Wars. I would just go to the flea markets with my dad, before my son was born. This guy had the action stands, the first ones. $1 apiece. He must have had 100 of them. Buck apiece! I was like “look at that dad, that’s pretty cool, it’s only a dollar.” Nah, we went on by (Steve rolls his eyes). We were looking for baseball gloves or something. And then when I got into it, I was thinking oh man, this guy was sitting there with a truckload of them. He had them in white boxes, like mail-in boxes type things. He had tons of them. He probably ripped them off or they came out of Robertson. Who knows. But just thinking back, God, $1 apiece. Haha.
D- I don’t know man, I think passing up the carded Boba Fetts for 50 cents apiece trumps that one. Haha.
D- So basically, your involvement in the Star Wars hobby all started because you were looking for a way to get something rolling, a little home business.
S- Yeah, just a way to make a little extra money. Something to do. I always wanted to do something like that. I always wanted to do a business where I could control it, and I wasn’t going to kill the customer. I did my research on these guys selling, and they were selling carded figures for around $10 apiece. So I started selling carded figures for $5. I’d undercut all of these guys just trying to get a better deal out there to the customer. I was trying to… I would get caught up with these companies sometimes. I was going to sell shirts one time. Dress shirts or something, I don’t know what it was. I checked it out, but you had to sell them at their price. I thought, man, they are killing these people. They’re paying $2 a shirt and selling them for $15. So that’s what I did with the toys. I tried to get a good price out there you know?
Now if something was real collectible, I knew it was hot and worth $500 , I wasn’t going to sell it for $500. I would sell it for maybe $350. Something like that. But I was still making good money, I might have only paid 10 bucks for it. Like with the prototype pieces. I gave away prototype pieces!! I was looking at one where I gave a guy a Mungo Baobab prototype. Just gave it to him! It was stupid. He had bought so much stuff from me. He was a really good customer. I think it was Bob Delalio I think. And I’m sure he thanked me for it. Hahaha. But yeah, I have it written down in the notes that I sent him a Mungo Baobab with the coin. With the coin!
D- Was there a point where you went from doing this as a way to make money in a business, to doing it because you wanted to get the toys as a collector? Because you now like the stuff and want to hold onto it?
S- Yeah, it kind of evolved into that over time. First it was just to make a few bucks, but I did like the Star Wars stuff. Then I got attracted to it when I started picking up prototypes and the proof cards. That really got me into it. I love things that are unique. Things that other people can’t get. That’s like anyone else, you like to have things that nobody else can get.
D- Sure, nobody wants a collection that is identical to everyone else’s.
S- Yeah. It’s not so much bragging, it’s just cool to have them. I thought it was neat. So I really got hooked on that.
D- Did you focus on any specific area of Star Wars collecting? Did you limit yourself to certain types of prototypes?
Droids Ewoks Concept Art
S- No, I was after all of it. I did eventually gravitate towards the artwork, but I didn’t really look for anything specific. It was just whatever was available that I could get. That I was lucky enough to get. Most of the time it was figures.
D- In the beginning stages, it sounds like the production stuff was easy to find. Flea markets, stuff still at retail, etc. But how hard was it for you to find the pre-production stuff? How hard was that to get into? What was your first realization that there was stuff out there in people’s hands that went into making the toys? And that you now had a chance to get?
S- Probably when I got the proof cards. Because that was a Kenner employee that was still working there. What I would do was when I worked at the post office, they had boxes that would come through that they couldn’t put in bags, they were called “outsides.” Might be too big, or whatever, or marked fragile. These boxes would come through, and Kenner had a special label with blue around the edge. Well I’d see that and if they had an attention somebody at the bottom, I would right that person’s name down. I would then write a letter to that person. I’d write the letter to Kenner at the Kroger building, attention so and so and just tell them I was a collector looking to find some stuff. I didn’t even know what prototypes were at that point.
D- So you were originally just trying to get production stuff that way?
Unproduced Droids Admiral Screed
S- I was just looking for anything. I didn’t even know about pre-production or prototype stuff. The same guy that I got all of the proof cards from, that was my first pre-production find. We made a connection and he started coming up with all kinds of stuff. He also came up with a whole box full of the Droids and Ewoks figure prototypes. Must have been 10-15 of them in there. I looked at them and went “whoa, are those prototypes?” He goes “yeah.” They were hard copy pieces. Just all thrown in the box. All in good shape though. They had coins, weapons, just all kind of mixed up.
D- So you knew at that time those characters hadn’t been made yet?
S- Well I didn’t know yet. I knew they were different or in some kind of sample form. I wasn’t really sure what they were. That’s when I started talking to guys like you and taking pictures. I’d have guys come in and say “acetate this or that” and I’d go “…oh okay.” I started getting information on the stages of the prototypes. And once you see those, the production toys ain’t nothing. This is what’s cool. And then when you can tie the protoype in with the regular toy and lay it next to it like you do here. I thought that was really neat. Haha.
D- Were you aware of anyone in the market for that stuff at that time? That there were collectors wanting these pre-production items?
S- No, I didn’t have a clue. A lot of guys didn’t even know about them either. There was probably a couple guys. This was the early 90’s, so guys like Gus Lopez and Steve Sansweet would have known about them. I sent Steve a couple pieces, so I knew those guys were looking for them. And then it just slowly started filtering out you know.
D- Did you add any of the prototype items or proof cards into your catalog?
Early Proof Card For Sale List from SOS Catalog
S- Yeah, I had the proof cards in there, but I held onto the figure prototypes. Just had them sitting at the house. Some were displayed.
D- So you weren’t actively buying the prototype items in order to re-sell them? Other than the proof cards?
S- No, that stuff was the stuff I was starting to collect. I was really digging that. Loving the prototype stuff and thought it was so cool. Also keeping things like the store display signs, and stuff like that that was hard to get. I still like that kind of stuff.
D- So what started out as just a way to make some money on the side, you are now seeing this stuff starting to be displayed around you, and you are starting to like it more. You have become a collector at that point.
S- Oh yeah, I really got into it.
S- Then I started getting into the weird stuff.
Power of the Force Tatooine Skiff Box Flat
D- Like what?
S- Well like the flat boxes. I liked seeing them displayed. Different things were just starting to appeal to me. Like the transparencies I got. I got a boatload of those from that same Kenner guy. Those are cool. I always thought they would be the next big thing. I thought man, there is so much you can do with these transparencies. But the ex-Kenner employee always told me “don’t you dare mention where you got them!” I’ve still never dropped his name. I heard he moved up to Rhode Island, but I’m not real sure. But I lost touch with him. I think he probably started selling to The Earth (Toy Mall), because he was right there.
D- The Earth had a great location. I really miss going in there and just browsing around.
S- This Kenner guy was kind of a flea market guy too, so he was smart enough to watch the papers and look for ads. I did get a lot of stuff from him though.
D- You mentioned other people having for sale lists, but were there any other collecting resources you were using in the late 80’s/ early 90’s?
S- Through some publications. Lenny Lee had started his toy magazine. He used to order stuff from me too. Toy Shop was probably the main source. I would check and see who was selling what and I’d price my stuff lower than them if I could. Yeah, Toy Shop was the main one. Toy Shop was the killer. I would also check the local papers for auctions and yard sales consistently every Friday and Saturday. I’d hit two or three flea markets on Sunday before church. These were all in the Cincinnati area. Ferguson Hills. Kellogg Avenue.
Ferguson Hills Drive-In was a killer flea market on Sundays. It was on Ferguson Road, just past Western Hills High School. We were up there one day and this guy pulls out these figures. Bagged figures laying on the ground. He was just setting up. People were scrambling to get a spot and set up. Me and Kyle went down there and I said “Kyle, look at this. This guy has like 30 or 40 figures laying there.” So I said what do you want for all of these? He said something like 50 cents apiece and then he asked if I wanted more. I asked him how many more he had. In the truck he had about four or five boxes of figures. He also had some carded Return of the Jedi Hoth Stormtroopers. He had two cases of those. I asked again how many he had. He said “well, I got more at the house.” I asked him what he wanted for them all. If he would have said $2,000 I would have said yes. He said $200. I told him I could give him half now and take what he had, and then I would meet him at his house. He said lets go. He had just started setting up and here he’s done for the day. $200 and he’s happy. So we went back to his place. He lived off of Eighth Street. We go up there and he has four more cases of Return of the Jedi carded figures. I give him the other $100.
D- Were they all the same Hoth Stormtrooper figure?
S- Same figure. All Jedi Hoth Stormtrooper. Every one of them! When I added up all of the bagged and carded figures. We had 2000 pieces for $200. 10 cents apiece! That was probably my best find ever. Price wise anyway. They were all mint. Some were in Kenner baggies, some were not, but he would have 20-30 figures in a bag with the weapons. They were all mint. That was amazing. It was a neat morning. We were only there like a half hour and we just left with him.
D- Is the flea market still there?
S- It’s a Walmart now. They tore the drive-in down. They had everything there. It would start at six in the morning and you would have guys out there with flashlights looking for stuff. Kyle and I would sit in the car watching and we would call them sharks. I always wanted to get a recording with a speaker and play the Jaws music while they were out there looking around with their flashlights. Da-dun da-dun da-dun, there they go! Haha. We’d just sit there and watch, but after a while we started doing the same thing because they started scarfing up the Star Wars too. So we were out there with our flashlights looking too!
D- You mentioned some of the bigger players that were around at the time. Do you remember any of the hard to find items people were hunting early on? Or do you remember thinking, this is the hot item right now. What were people after in the early days?
Unproduced Power of the Force American Yak Face Proof Card
S- Well, I remember the TIE Bomber being a big one. We were always looking for those. One time I picked up a Darth Vader TIE Fighter thinking it was a TIE Bomber. I didn’t even know what it was. Haha. I didn’t! Everybody was talking about this TIE Bomber, I have to find some of these. That was the toy people knew about that was hard to get. Then the Jawa Sandcrawler was another one that was hard to get. I was able to get access to some of those through a buddy in Canada. We brought some of them back. Let’s see, what else was hot? People were always looking for certain figures like Luke Stormtrooper. That was a hot one. Power of the Force stuff was really hot. But once I got the proof cards, that really got me hooked on the prototype stuff.
D- You were having these big discoveries at the time, things like proof cards, hard copy prototypes, etc. Were you aware of any other big finds happening around the country, or were you at the center of all the big finds?
S- I don’t remember hearing about any other big finds at the time. I was just concentrating on getting as much stuff as I could at the time without exposing a lot of what I was doing. Like when Steve Sansweet put his first book out, he came to the house and talked to me a couple times. He told me “Steve, when this book hits the market, prices are going to go straight up.” He was exactly right.
D- It happens every time.
S- Things went from $10 to $100.
D- Any time you do a resource, and it doesn’t matter what it is, prices climb. If you put out the definitive book on Star Wars paper cup collecting, people are going to want to start hunting paper cups to complete their collection. Prices of Dixie Cups are going to shoot through the roof.
Unproduced Droids Vlix
S- Ebay also became very popular and that brought down the price of everything. People thought there was only maybe 10 of something, then ebay showed people there was actually 100 or 1,000 out there. Everyone around the world now has access to it. But yeah, I was just trying to pick up as much as I could, just focusing on that and trying to keep it low key.
D- You also had a lot of the Power of the Force coins go through you. Were those from a single find?
S- I got three complete sets of coins from the art director at Kenner, who was on his way out. I used to run ads in the paper once in a while looking for Kenner items. Three lines were like 10 bucks for three days in the Enquirer. I’d run the ad once every other month. I didn’t run it consistently. I’d get a couple calls every once in a while. Anyway, I went to this guys house. I was a big, nice house. I can’t remember his name, but he was a real nice guy. He was a really good artist. He had stuff in his home he had painted from around Cincinnati. I recognized an Eden Park painting. Everything was in big beautiful frames.
It turns out he had three complete sets of the Power of the Force coins plus some extras. And then he also had a whole box of 48 Empire Strikes Back carded figures. All mint. He was looking for $200 for all of it. The coins were all thrown together in bags. My son and I got home and we got Boba Fisher’s checklist out and started checking them off. We had three complete sets.
D- Was this before you knew about any of the coin variations?
S- Yeah, I didn’t know anything about any coin variations. I knew about the gold 63rd coin, but that was it. I was just happy to have the coins for that amount. Like I was saying, for $200 you can’t go wrong. You’re not going to lose. I could sell the figures at $5 apiece and get my money back.
It’s important to remember that at the time, I didn’t know this stuff was going to be worth the kind of money it turned out to be. I was just trying to make sure I didn’t lose money by selling off the stuff I knew I could sell.
D- Was that all he had?
Assorted Proof Cards, Catalogs, Repro Art Book, and Store Display
S- I also asked him if he had any Toy Fair catalogs. I would always ask these guys about the Toy Fair catalogs. Or any paper items at all. Anything referring to the toys, stuff like that. That kind of in-house paperwork would help verify stuff. He said “Oh man it’s strange that you asked. I had 40 or 50 of the catalogs and just threw them out in the trash yesterday.” (Steve throws both his hands up on his head and rocks back in the chair) Haha! Unreal. He was a really nice guy though. In fact I ended up selling one of the sets of coins and sent him some more money. I think I did that twice. The second time I did that he had already moved on down to Florida to retire.
D- Did you ever get any “why do you want this stuff” kind of questions from Kenner employees?
S- No, not really. I just told them I was collecting and they were happy to get rid of the stuff that was just sitting around the house. Many of them didn’t have any clue people wanted this stuff until they saw my ad. That was great timing for me.
D- Any sense of why some of these employees would have so much stuff? Did they just carry it home one day, or a little at a time?
S- Some would be in Quality Control or something like that and just carry it home as they worked on it. I never really questioned it. I do remember telling one guy if he can get some more stuff I would be interested, but not to do anything that would jeopardize his job. I told him not to get himself in trouble.
I passed out flyers one time down at Kenner’s Elsinore Place location. I got in trouble there. I just happen to be down there, just checking the place out. It was around lunch time or something. Staples was right across the street so I parked in the Staples lot and walked over to the Kenner building. I’m looking around for the dumpsters, and all of a sudden all of these guys come out of the building for a break or something. So I started handing out these flyers I had just printed up. The flyer said I was looking to buy any Star Wars stuff. So I passed them out to all of these guys and they were like “oh yeah, yeah okay.”
Well after that, I think an alert went out to keep an eye out for me because that’s also around the time I started hitting the dumpsters at Elsinore Place on Sundays. They had a setup where the dumpsters were in between two buildings. There were two dumpsters with a gate around them. So I could look in both dumpsters from the street. I’d park on the street or at Staples and walk up there. I did it maybe nine or ten times. Finally one morning, a lady comes out and says “what are you looking for?” I said I was just looking for some boxes to pack up some stuff. That’s what I would always tell them. She said “you wouldn’t be Steve Denny would you?” I asked her how she knew that?? Haha. They probably had my flyer. The flyers I handed out probably went right up to security. She told me if I left now I’d be fine and she wouldn’t say anything. I said thank you very much and got out of there.
Stormtrooper 31 back proof card used to label a large box full of proofs
D- Was that the last time you went there?
Steve gets a sly grin on his face
S- I might have went back one more time. Haha. I didn’t really find too much there anyway. I found a couple names. I found some Batman toys, but nothing amazing. What I wanted to do, would have been great. It was just a thought though, I didn’t really pursue it. I needed to get a pickup truck and just dump all of it in my truck to take home and sort and go through it. Or get in touch with the guy that that picks it up and ask if I can grab the bags. You know all of the best stuff went in the garbage.
D- There was just so much history that got thrown away or destroyed. It’s so sad.
D- The three coin sets you mentioned, did you sell them as complete sets?
S- Yeah, they were sold as sets. I sold one or two sets through my catalog. I had one set left and I think Derby took that one to sell.
D- Any idea what you sold the sets for?
S- It was sick. I think I sold a set for $200. I was looking in Toy Shop two months later, and I see a set selling for $400. That would happen a lot. I would sell something that was kind of weird or not that common, and the next thing you know it’s right back up for sale for more. I know a lot of guys were just buying to flip things. They did that a lot with the proof cards. But I was thinking that at the prices I am selling if they can still make money, then good for them. I’m happy. But the coin thing was funny. I know I sold it for $200, then two months later, boom $400. I thought, man those went up quick. Haha.
The coins were all in really nice shape. Like they were just made. I ended up finding the company that made them and went over and talked to them. They treated me like I was an alien. They didn’t even want to talk about it. I think they were embarrassed I found it. Little hole in the wall place over by I-75. I think they are still there. They had a display of Power of the Force coins up on the wall, and I asked them if they had any more of them laying around that you don’t want? The guy says “what are you talking about?” I said, “out there in the lobby, you have a set of Power of the Force coins.” He said “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
D- He was just trying to tell you he’ll see you after work! You were missing his signs man.
S- Haha, yeah maybe I didn’t pick up on that. I just said okay and left. I should have fished around some more and got in their dumpsters but I didn’t do it. Haha.
D- Where did all of the proof sheets come from?
Return of the Jedi Original Artwork for Toy Fair
S- They came from the same guy that I got the proof cards from. He came back to me maybe a dozen more times with stuff. He had the proof sheets, I got that original Jedi artwork. That art was used at Toy Fair in New York, probably as part of a Return of the Jedi display. That’s a neat piece. Somebody spent some time on it. He also had a sign with it too. It was a cheezy little sign they had with it, held together with Velcro and stuff. It fell apart, I don’t even know where it is. I doubt I even still have it. I may have given it away, I don’t know. He was a cool guy though.
D- So you hit the Kenner dumpster on Elsinore, and the coin company, was there any other vendors that you were finding out about around that time that you would hit up looking for stuff?
S- Yeah, on Sunday mornings, I would go around and hit up all of the places that I knew were doing work or I thought had done past work for Kenner. Lot of proofing places, color separation guys.
D- How did you find out about these places?
S- I must have gotten a list of names and places from one of my contacts. I was going behind these places looking for stuff every Sunday. I had a route and I was hitting them all.
D- Find anything good?
S- I found a few things. Some book cover stuff that was Star Wars. I got those. Whole box of folded proofs. Those were kind of unique. I haven’t seen any of those anywhere, but no one is really looking for that stuff either.
D- So they are for the newer books? 90’s?
S- Yeah, this place had done the covers for some of the newer Star Wars books. They threw away a whole box of the proofs, all folded. There was probably 50 to 75 of them. I looked through them and I probably threw half of them away. They had some really nice baseball ones you would like that they did for a Nabisco mail-in offer. It’s in pencil, in ink, colored, variations of it. It has Babe Ruth on it, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron. It’s got all these old guys on it. It has something to do with vintage and tied in with the new guys. I think Mark McGuire and some other guys are on it. I can’t remember. But it was all thrown away in a great big folder. I pulled that out and thought “woah, that’s neat.” I got anything that I thought was worth keeping. I got all different kinds of things. I have cigarette proof sheets at home.
D- Do you know that people think of you as the original dumpster diver in the Star Wars collecting hobby?
S- Yeah, they think I’m a bum is what they think. Haha.
Power of the Force Luke Skywalker Stormtrooper Proof Card
D- No, no. It’s a term of endearment. Anyone that is out there hunting this stuff down, they are all hitting up contacts, looking through dumpsters and trash, and just hoping to have a fraction of the success you have had. So you are known as a dumpster diver, but did you ever find any amazing things going through the dumpsters, or did you get all of the really good stuff through your networking with ex-Kenner employees?
S- The good stuff all came from yard sales, flea markets, going straight to the house of ex-employees that I found out about through ads.
D- So the dumpster diving reputation you have was a very minor part of your success?
S- Yeah, it was an afterthought really. The dumpster diving was just an effort to try and dig up some stuff, but I found very little that way. Like when Kenner moved from the Kroger building I went down there. They had this great big dumpster there and there was only three or four boxes in there. That was it. I may have been too early or too late. The only good thing I found there was the Starting Lineup pictures of the prototypes. I did find some in-house directories there though. Those were a big source of information for me. Had everyone’s name in there.
D- Did you contact a lot of employees that way?
S- I tried a couple. One lady got all upset. A couple did take my name and said they might call me later. I didn’t pursue it any more. I started getting out of it at that point. It was becoming too competitive and prices were getting too high.
D- Any tips to share with the current collectors out