I've been watching the documentary on Disney+ about how Star Wars got made. When it came out the toy companies were not ready for the demand and sold empty boxes with a voucher to claim the figures much later. I expect even those boxes are worth something now. George Lucas was very canny when it came to merch, but making that film almost killed him. It's amazing that the stuff still sells so well nearly 50 years later.
Not only are those display stands valuable, they're incredably sought after by most collectors and can go for 100s, especially depending on condition. I've seen graded ones in almost perfect condition going for a lot, especially if they have the figures with them.
There's a great show on Netflix called the toys that made us, and the episode about Star Wars and kenner is great.
Alot of people kind of see Lucas as this evil genius with the toys and merch sales, but realistically, he had a deal with kenner that he'd get something like 2.5% of every dollar made (which is a lot overall, but he wasn't ripping them out of it)
I think the toys, ships, and everything else was more of a chance to sing the praises of the designers and creators of the creatures, ships, and weapons. I mean, the only reason any of it was sellable in the first place was because it looked cool, but they also allowed/ allow people to kind of imagine their own stories.
When I was a kid I'd have so much fun re-creating scenes, or thinking of my own, I suppose it kind of left a mark on me because now, all these years later I write sci-fi stories for fun, so I guess back then the star wars stuff was my vehicle to output some of my creativity which is kind of interesting to think of
The Disney documentary is really interesting as it shows the struggles they went through to make the film. Space films were not taken seriously then and some a few years earlier look pretty bad. It all paid off in the end and, ironically, created an empire ;)