Indiana Jones spent his career insisting that priceless artifacts belong in a museum, so there is something fitting that collectors are paying big money to secure items based on the action adventure franchise. While it would be easy to assume that action figures from 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark would be a highly sought after addition to any collection, they are apparently not as valuable as some of the pieces of cardboard they came attached to.
A set of four box card proofs for Kenner’s vintage Raiders of the Lost Ark action figure line sold on eBay earlier this month for a huge $7,000. Considering this is sale did not include any of the figures that would have been attached to the production line version of the boxes – which themselves only brought $3,200 in a separate auction – it seems that four flimsy pieces of card is officially worth double those figures you have been banking on for your retirement fund. But there is a reason why.
The Raiders of the Lost Ark Toy Line Was a Disappointment
To understand why anyone would pay that, you have to really look at the importance of the “proof” tag. Many things from toys to books go through approval stages that require a small number of items to be produced to ensure that there are no errors and everyone is happy with the designs. That means that proofs such as the four backing cards included in this sale are probably some of the rarest pieces for any Indiana Jones collector outside of screen-used props which have been known to sell for hundreds of thousands.
These proofs are working documents, never intended to leave the building, and most were thrown away once they had served their purpose. For that reason, only a handful usually survive when a designer or officer worker takes them home before they are destroyed. There are no real numbers available as to how many of these backing card proofs exist, but it would probably be barely in double figures. Compared to the thousands of figures Kenner then produced with these backing cards, we are talking ultra rare.
Another big factor in the rarity and collector value of the Raiders line is that Kenner picked up the line on the back of their incredibly successful run of Star Wars figures. When Raiders of the Lost Ark became the highest-grossing movie of 1981, they released the first wave of figures – which included Indy, Marion Ravenwood, villain Toht, and iconic Cairo Swordsman – in 1982, but the line struggled to be a commercial success. The line eventually stretched to nine figures, three playsets and a couple of vehicles, but it never came close to Star Wars numbers. Kenner decided to cut their losses on the franchise and not push out more figures for Temple of Doom, meaning that the Raiders line became an instant collector’s set of the future.
A $7,000 price for four pieces of printed card may sound ludicrous, and on some level it is. However, many collectors own the figures and not many can say they own a piece of the process that put them on shelves. That is why these proofs are worth more than the action toys that followed, and why, as Indy himself would say, probably should be in a museum.
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