There was a time when action figures where mainly just for kids. While that's still true to some extent there are a lot of collectors out there who will buy action figures to keep in their packaging or display on shelves. Rare action figures from decades past in their original packaging can fetch quite attractive sums of money.

With the explosion of science fiction movies, comic book movies and television series has come an equally big explosion of merchandise. Action figures used to only be available for popular movie and kids cartoon series characters. Now you can get figures of video game characters, TV characters, public figures and musicians among others.

The most popular type of action figure is the 3.75 inch type which was made popular by George Lucas and the Star Wars saga. When the original Star Wars movie was made Lucas ensured that he kept the rights to the merchandise which up to that point had not been very lucrative. That all changed when Star Wars was released. The demand for the Star Wars characters in action figure form was so great that the makers Hasbro at the time could not meet demand. Instead they packaged and sold an early bird package which was essentially an empty box with a promise of figures a few months later.

What Lucas did that changed the game was to make the figures smaller. Before the Star Wars range figures were more like dolls such as the Action man range. This made the vehicles that would be sold for the figures very large and cumbersome. By making action figures smaller the vehicles could be made at a more reasonable size to keep costs down and increase sales. This allowed Hasbro to make Millenium Falcons, AT-ATs and X-Wings that were not prohibitively huge. The 3.75 inch figure took off and has been the industry standard for decades.

Sales of action figures and vehicles for the Star Wars range actually made more money than the movies did. Today new toys from the saga are released every year based on characters from the movies, comics, video games as well as the recent clone wars television series. The action figure is a great way for kids to enjoy their favourite characters but also incredibly popular by older fans who just want them for decoration. It's a shame to keep them cooped up in their original packaging though even if it can make you a bit of cash.