The peruvian "Basa" Line - Why is it so rare?

[Darth_Sith_Lord]

Following on from Shane FS Post in the Classsifieds Section I thought I would start a discussion thread as This line has always intrigued me from I first read about it on the SWCA?
Why is it so rare and so few items have appeared?
Did they release any Yoda DSD PD or R5 items?

Look forward to your responses.


Liam

[Joe_O]

You may drop down dead when you see this Liam..



Empire Strikes Back 41-Back Yoda - Star Wars Collectors Archive

As far as MOC go, I think Basa just stickered up Kenner MOC like the Yoda shown above, there is another one shown on the Archive: Empire Strikes Back C-3PO - Star Wars Collectors Archive

Skye did a nice write up on the Chewie 12" here too: Perubacca | Basa Doll

And if you wanted some general company information from the good old internet:

BASA ( Bakelita y Anexos S.A.) is a plastic products Peruvian company, founded on april 12 of 1949, began making bakelite products, in 1954 started manufacturing plastic products, had his golden age making toys, in the 70s and 80s, in those years made action figures, dolls, play sets, toy soldiers, cars, and much more. had a huge line of toys, many with original characters created by the company and many were made under lisence of different companies that have the rights reserved of Toys, TV and Movie characters. this are some: Disney, Barbie, Thundercats, He-Man, Star Wars, DC Comics, The A Team, The Six Million Dollar Man, Rambo, Play doh, My Little Pony, Punky Brewster, Playmobil, ALF, Care Bears, Knight Rider, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Cabbage Patch Kids, Rainbow Brite and more. in those years BASA was a big budget, world-class company in the manufacture of plastic toys, reason why big toy companies like Hasbro, Kenner and Mattel gave to BASA the lisence to make many of their toys, Also at one time during the 70s, BASA bought toy soldiers to Multiple Toymakers Company, to be included in their soldiers play sets, play sets that included BASA toy soldiers and MPC toy soldiers, doing so, unique toy soldier play sets, that mixed BASA and MPC toy soldiers.

This gold era of BASA toys, would last until early 90s, in 1998 declared the company insolvent and stop the manufacture, some years after, the company began a restructuring and return as a small company, to manufacturing plastic products, but not toys, the company this days only manufacture home plastic products.

[Darth_Sith_Lord]

Thats yet another new additon to my Grail List!

Thanks for the Info Joe!

I sure would love to own an Basa MOC!

[Shane Turgeon]

I wasn't going to mention anything for a while but since this topic came up, it seems an appropriate time to throw out a teaser...

While i was in Peru I actually had an opportunity to sit down and interview the two former owners of Basa as well as a few other employees, including two engineers, who worked for Basa for many, many years. While they didn't have many specific insights directly into the Star Wars line, i was able to get a lot more information about the company in general and some of the toy lines they produced. I'm going to be doing a large article on the company very soon but i still have a few more leads to follow and interviews to conduct with a couple of other former employees down there which i hope provides more info. I hope to have it ready in a few months.

In the meantime, to answer some of the questions - what it more or less boils down to is population and economics. Peru is a pretty small country and in the 70s and 80s, it was not an overly wealthy one either. So by those facts alone, the production and release of Basa items was *significantly* smaller than most foreign licensees. When the distribution is that small, what's survived, especially in a country where there wasn't much need to hold on to old toys, is going to be even smaller.

Basa had a long working relationship with Kenner dating back to the late 60s so it was a given that they'd distribute the SW line. As it's been mentioned, they simply imported Kenner 3 3/4" figures and affixed a Basa sticker to the cardback. While we were at the Lima Comic Con two weeks ago, the Jedi Force group had a large display of Peruvian collectibles and there was also a Bossk cardback featured.

I spoke with a number of shop owners down there too and even they couldn't stress enough just how rare Basa items are, even there. One shop owner who had been open over a decade has only ever seen one boxed Basa toy from that era come through his hands. It was a Knight Rider KITT and he had it in his store when i was there. He wanted a lot for it, understandably so, and i was just thankful to even see it.

[Joe_O]

Nice insight Shane, I am glad you came away from Peru with so much more than the offer I read about on FB

No but seriously, wow! Awesome read and look forward to the article! Will this be a part of the TV show too?

[ChrisGeorgoulias]

What an awesome trip!

Here's the small toy display from Jedi Fest also featuring a Basa lunchbox and Thermos.

http://forum.rebelscum.com/photogall...m/IMG_6843.JPG
http://forum.rebelscum.com/photogall...m/IMG_6728.JPG
http://forum.rebelscum.com/photogall...m/IMG_6782.JPG

We got a chance to evaluate the lunchbox, game, and thermos at the Fan Meeting the day before and they're truly special pieces. The thermos has graphics from the Kenner AT-AT packaging and the lunchbox has some great, crude, original artwork.

-chris

[Michael_Ritter]

Looking forward to seeing the article Shane, sounds like some good information was gathered.

Mike

[BillCable]

How did they import an ESB45 RL 3PO from Kenner when they were never produced by Kenner??!!

[HWR]

Great news, Shane. I'm really looking forward to read that article and learn a lot more about the mysterious Basa items then. So I was right, when I presumed that, unlike TopToys and Glasslite, loose Basa figures are identical to Kenner figures.

Some really amazing stuff on these photos Chris. ,

[skye]

I don't have much to add to this conversation, but I'm really happy that it is happening. I can't wait for Shane's article.

That lunchbox is amazing. It looks like all the images are from the SW era, but the thermos is ESB. They weren't together, were they?

The X-Wing on the game looks a lot like the one in the LXW bootleg that Joe showed on this months Cast.