Imagine you've just listed an item on eBay for roughly a hundred bucks. You think it might fetch two or three times your asking price. Then imagine the bidding for the item catches fire and it sell winds up selling for nearly 12 grand? Well this scenario actually came true for one lucky seller, albeit he had the foresight to take the piece to Vectis Auctions in the U.K. 

So what did he or she put up for sale that was worth such a hefty sum? Well, it was a Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back medical droid figurine. The medical droid makes a brief 10 to 20 second appearance in the film. An unexpected bidding war started between memorabilia collectors.

Auction spokeswoman Louise Harker described the scene to the Daily Mail.

"The Star Wars items made up the the first 50 lots and it just went through the roof."

"The room was pretty full, a couple of people were bidding it out against each other, the same person bought quite a few of the big lots."

But what made this toy so special? After all, it wasn't autographed by Mr. Luke Skywalker himself. No, simply put it was still in its original cardboard and plastic packaging. That's remarkable considering how the toy is from 1980. Plus, anything related to the Star Wars franchise is golden when it comes to collectors.

Harker confirmed that the condition of the medical droid was fundamental in making it worth such an exorbitant price.

"The condition of the lots is a key factor in gaining prices such as these, the un-punched card, the condition of the card itself, the bubble which the figure is contained within and of course the all-important factory seal."

And the toy isn't exactly rare. In fact the same exact medical droid figurines have sold for hundreds, not thousands, of dollars.

"This figure is not one I've ever heard of, sometimes all it takes is for two collectors to be missing one figure from their collection to push up the value."

Regardless of it being a well-known item or not, the seller will be walking away with a lot more dough than he before.

"I have spoken to the vendor who was extremely shocked. These items all came from the same collection, the vendor had no preconceptions about what they would fetch and was delighted with the pre-sale estimates given," Harker added. 

"He was pleasantly surprised by the final price realised for his items."

And who wouldn't be?

Do you have anything lying around your house that you think might be worth more than just pocket change? Let me know in the comments section below.