Kenner Canada

Kenner released the die cast line in Canada from its base in Toronto, Ontario on bi-lingual cards. Kenner Canada released all the die cast ships except the TIE Bomber on a limited range of cardbacks. The Series 1 ships were also released on the SW20 card, which was never released by Kenner in the US. As yet an example of a Land Speeder on a SW20 back has not been verified.

The SW12 cardback included a bi-lingual starburst on the front, and French text in the top right corner.

The first three Series 2 ships can be found on the Canadian SW7 box. Like the SW12 cards, the box is similar to its US counterpart but includes French and English text. Oddly, despite correcting the ‘Empire’s largest Space Craft’ text on the Millennium Falcon and Y-Wing boxes (corrected in both French and English), the Canadian SW7 continue to misspell Millennium, an error that Kenner US had by now corrected.

SW7 Imperial Cruiser photos courtesy of Todd Thornhill

Kenner’s QA processes were no better in Canada than in Ohio, with the quality control team failing to notice that the Imperial Cruiser was missing its French translation on the side of the box.

Due to the smaller market in Canada and dwindling sales following the release of Series 3 the Series 1 and 2 ships cannot be found on ESB cards, and the Series 3 ships were only released on the ESB11A. The Canadian ESB11A is one of the most visually striking die cast card, featuring two starbursts on the front – one in French and one in English.