My name is Serdar Kalfa. I am a mechanical engineer and product designer from Switzerland with Turkish roots. My passion is model building, sculpting/painting and collecting rarities such as UZAY figures.
In the 1990s, UZAY figures were sold in traditional kiosks in Turkey called "bakkal". I bought my first UZAY figure from one of the bakkal’s in 1991 for just 7000 Turkish Lira which then corresponded to 1,50 dollar. I remember that in the shop there were also the figures named "Kara Lider", "Aslan Adam", "Blue Stars", "ARTOO-DETOO", "See-Threep" and "ARFIVE-DEFOUR". I decided to buy only the "See-Threep" since in my opinion it was the only one which looked like in the movie. I kept the figure 25 years on my desk. After I found out that it was highly valuable, I couldn't stop myself from searching for others, especially those that I had seen at the shop. I started my collection in 2016, when everything was already very expensive.
After a while I learned that Bülent Cennet, whom I have been friends with since high school, had a surprising story to tell about the UZAY's. Amongst many other interesting facts, he told me about his grey sword from the "HEAD MAN" figure (the rarest piece within the UZAY collection) which was lost during a mail delivery. In 2017 he decided to give up his collection and to sell a part of it to me. This purchase was a big leap for my collection. Bülent still keeps some of his figures as a memory of his uncle.
I have been collecting ever since. Thanks to my friends in Turkey, I was able to complete almost all variants, their weapons and accessories within only a couple of years.
In 2022 magic happened. Another grey sword appeared in Istanbul. Until then, the existence of only three of it had been confirmed. I am happy that I was able to add this rare piece into my collection.
Just for fun – I decided not only to turn the UZAY universe into NFTs but also to transfer the magic into the Lego world. Like Gündüz, I used sand, popcorn and other objects.
