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Ambassador
Sarek was one of the figures in the
first wave of the third assortment of
Star Trek: The Next Generation action
figures which was produced in 1995.
Those of you that haven't been keeping
up on your action figure collector
geek-speak and had trouble with
terminology in that last sentence are
encouraged to check out the rest of the
archives for help. By the time this
assortment of Next Generation figures
began coming out, Playmates was
beginning to realize that they had
glutted the market by releasing
assortments of figures from Next
Generation, Deep Space Nine, Classic
Trek, Voyager and the movie
"Generations" all within the space of
only a year or two. Fans couldn't
afford to purchase everything that was
coming out and were frustrated. Stores
either didn't want to order four to
five assortments of Star Trek figures
or simply didn't care and only ordered
based on the amount of shelf space that
needed to be filled, regardless of
assorment. This would eventually lead
to combining all the various series
into one "umbrella" Star Trek line of
figures which would encompass all the
television series and movies. As a
temporary measure, however, Playmates
began to slow their release of new
figures which effectively rationed them
out and alleviated some of the retail
overload.
One
side-effect of this rationing was that
the packaging of figures released
during this time often featured
pictures of "new" figures on the back
side that you couldn't find in any
store because they had been bumped to a
later wave or sometimes even a later
assortment. This appears to be what
happened to the Sarek figure. Sarek and
the Lwaxana Troi figure from this same
assorment were both pictured on the
packaging of the last wave of the
previous assortment, although they were
never released as a part of it. The
American version of the Sarek figure
came with a Skybox trading card pack-in
premium, although the Canadian release
of the figure came with a "Space Cap"
pog. The same is true of the Lwaxana
Troi figure and this supports the idea
that both were originally intended as a
part of the previous assortment (which
came with "Space Caps" as premiums). My
Sarek figure was most likely purchased
at the Lindale-area K-Mart in Cedar
Rapids, IA while visiting Ruth in
Marion on a weekend, but I'm not 100%
certain about that.
I like this
figure a lot. The head sculpt really,
really looks quite a bit like the
character, although it could stand a
few more paint operations to get the
hair to look as good as the prototype.
Had to cut corners somewhere, otherwise
it just wouldn't be Playmates.
Unopened, this figure will now fetch an
average of $10.00 on the secondary
market. Opened and intact, the figure
will average $5.00. The Canadian
version, with that stupid "Space Cap"
pack-in, goes for close to $200.00 on
the secondary market when unopened ,
but is comparable to the American
version in value if it's been opened.
Sarek features limited articulation
(those robes, you know) at the neck,
shoulders, biceps, elbows, and uh..
ankles.
Sarek is
sculpted as he appeared in the Next
Generation episode "Sarek." The figure
has not been reused to produce any
other figures, nor does it seem likely
it will be anytime soon.
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