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It was easy to forget in the 1980s just what a central part that crazy old wizard Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi played in our very first taste of Star Wars, as the emphasis shifted away from him in the second and third movies of the Trilogy. Ben is with us right up to the point at which Vader stamps on his cloak and he's still whispering in Luke's head in the final Death Star battle. Then on Hoth he's a ghostly voice, a dream, perhaps a phantom of Luke's imagination, until he appears shimmering into view on Dagabah to offer ghostly avuncular advice and a lesson on how omitting the truth isn’t lying which was always a difficult pill to swallow. Then in The Return of the Jedi his voice and presence fades yet further away.

The original Kenner Ben Kenobi action figure itself formed part of the first 12 and featured a lovely distinctive blue lightsaber. Unfortunately, once you lost this tiny accessory, you were just never going to get another one. The lightsaber provided a striking flash of colour against Ben's orangey-brown body and cloak and brought the action figure to life. Once it was gone, the Ben Kenobi figure became a rather dull and lifeless thing, a shadow of what came out of the original blister back.

Find Vintage Ben Kenobi action figure on eBay

One rather quirky feature of the original Kenner Ben Kenobi action figure is that he has a moulded hood on his back which is completely redundant since it is meant to be covered by his vinyl cape.

There's something irresistibly Freudian about old Obi-Wan taking Luke back to his womb-ish cave to tell him about his father whilst giving him an unavoidably phallic object to wave around the room at the same time.

My very best vintage Ben Kenobi action figure has almost no paint loss on the head even when viewed under a magnifying glass. The cape is almost certainly genuine, although I'm not 100% on the lightsaber. It passes the float test, but the condition of it is so immaculate that I can't quite believe it lasted so well. I did buy this from a guy who has kept his small collection of figures in a glass case since he was a kid, but even then the Sand People action figure that came with this had a very dodgy repro cape and the Gaffi stick failed the float test.

You can find a quick guide to spotting a reproduction cape on eBay here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/Reproduction-capes-and-how-to-spot-them-/10000000005887713/g.html.

Whilst I'm on the subject of reproductions, I have it on fairly good authority that one trick the fakers use to make vinyl cloaks for vintage Kenner Jawas is to cut down vintage Obi-Wan Kenobi cloaks. How you would spot one of these (if it's done well) I have absolutely no idea because it would be exactly the same vinyl. In short it would be the same material, the same age and probably have some convincing signs of genuine wear and tear. My advice would be never to buy a vinyl cloaked vintage Jawa unless the seller can prove the provenance.

There are quite a few different paint jobs on the Kenner Obi-Wan Kenobi figure and here are two of them below. You can also see from the photo that one of the most common areas of paint loss on the vintage Ben Kenobi is on his hair, as well as on the black undershirt:

As an aisde, using the last three letters of Kenobi's surname as the first three letters of his first name is a tautology which creates a very strong rhyme and rythtm to the character's name (Obi-Wan Kenobi). This probably contributed significantly to Kenobi's iconic status and also to the memorability of Princess Leia's holographic plea to him: 'Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're our only hope!' Here we have the strong consonance of 'help' and 'hope' at the beginning and the end of the statement with the tautology of Obi-Wan's name wrapped inside. This eleven syllable statement is practically poetry and extemely potent rhetoric which stayed in the mind of every fan long after they had first seen A New Hope.

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All Star Wars action figures, vehicles, collectibles and Star Wars toys shown on this website are the 3.75 inch scale and from my own private Star Wars collection unless otherwise stated. Where possible original vintage accessories have been used but in some instances I have placed Kenner Star Wars figures with either reproduction weapons and accessories or for Hasbro figures close approximations have been used. This is mostly the case for modern Star Wars lightsabers where the correct item can be very difficult to identify on some ocassions. Vintage Star Wars action figures are shown with their original weapon or accessory when I have them. When a vintage Kenner action figure is shown with an accessory which is not original I have tried to point this out where possible.

All of the Star Wars action figures shown were purchased second hand, usually incomplete, and in bulk. They have been reunited with their original weapons and accessories where we could get hold of them.

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