Vintage Star Wars Die Cast Toys

Takara released the first three Series 1 ships on the SW12 card, with Japanese text replacing the English of the Kenner cardbacks.

The 3 and 3/4″ Takara 12 backs deployed a Takara sticker over the Kenner logo but the die cast SW12 cards were printed in Japanese. The cardbacks were clearly released later than their US cousins; the photos on the cardback featured the die cast Land Speeder, X-Wing and TIE Fighter rather than the larger scale ships featured on the Kenner cards.

In an interesting twist the toy Light Saber advertised on the Kenner cardback was changed from yellow to red on the Takara cardback – removing reference to the yellow saber may have related to the colour of the toys available in Japan, or perhaps a nod to accuracy that Kenner notoriously ignored.

The other key difference to the Kenner and non-Japanese cardbacks is that the images of 3 and 3/4 scale ships have been replaced with those of the die cast line.