Will Seippel | June 10, 2025

I always look forward to seeing what exciting items have gone under the hammer at auctions held by our WorthPoint Industry Partners. Our Price Guide updates daily, with thousands of new items streaming in, and I always try to highlight a few of my favorites to share with our followers. There’s usually a good story behind so many of these pieces, and sharing my passion for antique and vintage items is the best part of my job. Let me tell you about a couple of items from our partners that caught my eye.

Pop culture is a broad category in collectibles, but for collectors, niche categories like brand prototypes and early editions with a good pop culture pedigree and provenance will always get the attention of serious collectors.

Lunch boxes are often among the items pop culture fans and collectors look for, and two recent items auctioned by WorthPoint Industry Partner Van Eaton Galleries show how much a dedicated collector will pay for rare examples of lunch boxes and the insulated beverage jugs that go with them. A Dudley Do-Right set, with photostatic images in black and white, fetched an astonishing $25,000 in a recent auction, proving the value these pieces can have, especially a rare example like a brand prototype. Another set, depicting Rocky and Bullwinkle, also sold for $25,000, proving that brand samples can bring high prices on the auction block.

Anything from the Star Wars franchise of movies will always be a hit in pop culture circles, and that rang true in a recent sale of a Hildebrandt Brothers pre-award movie poster of the first film in the series. Before any Oscars were announced or even considered, this poster was in theaters and recently sold for $11,249.17 at an auction by WorthPoint Industry Partner Ewbank’s in the UK. The appeal of Star Wars merchandise is global, even for very early examples. 

Another recent Star Wars hit was a mint condition Darth Vader figure in its original package from the Jeff Jacobs collection, sold by Hake’s, for $130,095. This sale was the second sale from the Jacobs collection. The success of these two sales proves that Star Wars memorabilia isn’t just collectibles; it’s part of our cultural landscape.

Are you using our WorthPoint Price Guide to help you uncover hidden gems? Whether it’s a lunchbox that was stored in your parents’ attic or a toy figurine you had as a child, you never know what something might be worth!