Starting Lineup collector Joe Curcio has sent us a great story about a recent find of his:
The mighty Kenner Store Displays. Nobody did it better than Kenner. Back in the 1970’s, Star Wars always had great, eye catching displays. It was either with an item hanging from the store ceiling, a great standup cardboard cutout, or those ever popular cardboard rails to promote the Star Wars items. Kenner did this for many of their toy releases, but one of my favorites was the display for the Kenner MLB Line.
Back in 1989, they used an awesome 2 tier, clear plastic display with 7 players on each row, and some of the player’s cards displayed in the background. These came to the store ready to use with instructions about how to display them on the pegboard. The display would be placed above the figures that were to be sold. They also came with the proper rods to use on the pegboard. I do remember seeing them in stores like this or sometimes just placed on a shelf. Kenner also made these displays for the Baseball Greats series and the 1990 MLB series, but both are actually a very rare find.
A few months ago I was able to locate a few of these from and Ex-Kenner employee. I was thrilled to get these still sealed in the original shipping boxes. When I got them and opened them up I was so excited. I was even more excited when I saw something about these that I have never seen before. No, they weren’t all prototypes inside, although that would have been nice. It was 14 players as always, but it had 12 figures from the 1989 baseball series, 2 players from the 1989 Baseball Greats series, and in the background in had baseball cards from the 1990 series. Very interesting combination. It’s a great mix!
Here are some unboxing pictures:
Thank you Joe for sharing this awesome find with the Kenner community. Hopefully we can talk you into becoming a regular around here! Dan
Interested in selling one of those Starting LineUp store displays?
I may be interested in selling my store display. It’s still in the box and has never been opened.
What would a fair value be for one of these?
I would suggest checking ebays completed listings. Pricing would also be based on the completeness and condition of yours. Ones still sealed in a shipping box like this would command more of a value than without the box.
I have a lot of figures in boxes that my kids at the time sold them fir a hobby at card shows.anyone no what and where I should sell them we have basketball baseball hockey golf boxing football everything.
Hey Gary – it honestly depends on what you have. Most SLU’s outside of 1988/89 don’t have a ton of value, most being in the $5-$10 range unless it’s Michael Jordan. The regional issues from 1988/89 can be worth several hundred depending on condition. Honestly, eBay is the best place to determine value by checking completed/sold listings.
I found this same collection. I was going to sell it on ebay. Is it worth anything to you?