A RARE Star Wars figure has been sold for more than £10,00 at a North-East auction house.

The Jawa figure crucially came with a vinyl cape, not a cloth one, and has never been taken out of its packaging by the seller who bought it on a market stall for pocket money prices in about 1980.

It went to an international buyer who paid £10,200 for the figure, well over the £5-6,000 estimate by toy auctioneer Vectis, based in Thornaby.

The vendor bought the toy from a market in Bacup, Lancashire, and the stallholder advised him back then that it was rare.

“It took him weeks to find it and I remember him telling me how hard it was to locate and how rare it was and for that reason I never opened it,” he said.

“It has never been opened, out of my possession or altered in any way and I hope it goes to a collector who values just how rare a piece it is.”

Manufacturers only made a relatively small number of Jawa figures with a vinyl cape before switching to a cloth one which looked more like the characters in the films.

Collectors will pay up to £1,000 for a vinyl cape Jawa in good condition even without its original packaging.