Thirty. That’s how many prototype Boba Fett action figures Kenner built in 1979 with a spring-loaded rocket that actually launched off his jetpack. Only three are known to have survived. One of them sold for $1,342,000 at Goldin Auctions, a price Guinness World Records confirmed this spring as the most ever paid for a Star Wars action figure at auction, according to Guinness World Records. The figure was built for a toy shelf, not a vault. If you want to understand why it’s worth more than most houses now, you have to start with why it was never supposed to exist at all.

A Bounty Hunter Kids Were Promised

Boba Fett wasn’t even in theaters yet when Kenner started building anticipation for him. He’d shown up first in an animated segment tucked inside a 1978 television special, a brief, silent appearance that somehow made him one of the most wanted figures in the entire toy line before most kids had seen him do anything at all. The company offered the figure as a mail-away giveaway, available to any kid willing to mail in proof-of-purchase seals clipped from other Star Wars toys, according to Smithsonian Magazine. The early engineering samples Kenner built while developing that figure used a “J-slot” firing mechanism that could launch a small plastic missile straight out of Boba Fett’s backpack, real recoil and all, a detail confirmed by TheStreet’s reporting on the record sale. It’s the kind of feature that would have made an already hyped toy feel unstoppable. It’s also the kind of feature that got yanked before a single one reached a kid’s mailbox.

One Choking Hazard Changed Everything

Kenner didn’t pull the rocket because of anything Boba Fett did. A rival toy line built by Mattel, tied to Battlestar Galactica, used a similar missile-firing mechanism and was recalled after the small projectiles caused choking injuries, including at least one child’s death, per Smithsonian’s reporting. Regulators and toy companies alike went on high alert, and Kenner’s own engineers moved fast: production samples with working launchers were pulled from the line and, by the company’s own account relayed in that same coverage, largely destroyed rather than risk a repeat. The version that eventually shipped to millions of kids had its missile permanently glued in place, with a printed note explaining the launcher had been removed for safety.

Down to Three, and One of Them Just Made History

Most of those scrapped prototypes never left the factory. The handful that did survive are believed to have slipped out with employees rather than through any official channel, and today only three confirmed examples of the J-slot version are known to exist, per Guinness World Records. Rarity alone doesn’t set a price, though, not in a hobby this crowded. This particular figure carried the highest third-party grade of the three, according to a report from The National Desk, and came with an unbroken chain of ownership that had never touched retail distribution, per TheStreet’s reporting. Grade and provenance are the two things that separate a mildly interesting collectible from one worth chasing across state lines.

The Gavel, and a New Record

When the final bid landed at Goldin Auctions, the total came to $1,342,000, enough to make this the most expensive Star Wars action figure ever sold at auction, a title Guinness World Records officially recognized. The figure changed hands complete with its original mailer packaging, according to Guinness, the kind of documentation that keeps a prototype’s price climbing instead of getting picked apart by skeptics. It’s a steep number for a toy that was never meant for retail shelves in the first place, let alone a display case. But scarcity built entirely by accident tends to be the most convincing kind.

What Kenner Threw Away Is What Collectors Want Most

Nobody at Kenner in 1979 was thinking about resale value when they scrapped that rocket. They were thinking about liability, and about a warehouse full of toys regulators might never let them sell. That instinct to protect kids from a choking hazard is precisely what turned a discarded engineering sample into the single rarest object in an entire hobby: the harder a company worked to erase something, the more collectors now scramble for whatever slipped through anyway. The next seven-figure vintage toy probably won’t be the one that sold best in 1979. It’ll be the one some nervous executive tried hardest to make disappear.