Tommy and Yehuda write:
Welcome to the latest issue of Star Wars Community Digest, your place to get summaries about what's going on in the Star Wars collecting community across all of the forums and Facebook groups. We will present the news and current events each week, so that you don't miss anything. Please be aware that many of these are closed Facebook groups though, which means you will need to join them in order to read the conversations. But don't worry, it's free and almost instantaneous.
Participating Groups and forums:
Star Wars Displays and Advertising
Star Wars Records and Tapes
Star Wars 12 Backs and Early Vintage Collectors Group (A New Hope 1977-79)
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Vintage Collecting Group 1980-1982
Star Wars: Return of The Jedi Vintage Collecting Group 1983 - 1985
Star Wars: POTF (Last 17) Vintage Collecting Group 1985
Star Wars: The "Dark Times" Collecting Group (1985-95, Droids & Ewoks, etc)
Jabba's Court - Vintage Star Wars Collectors Group 1977 - 1988
The Imperial Commissary - 1977-1985 Vintage Star Wars Toys, Buy Sell Trade
Power Of The Force Coins
Star Wars bootleg and knockoff collectors
Star Wars Micro Machines and Action Fleet Collecting Group
vintage star wars action figures
The RebelScum vintage forum
Jawa's Outpost (UK and EIRE Star Wars trading group)
Echo Base Vintage Star Wars Trade/Sell/Buy
If you are an administrator or moderator and would like your community to be a part of this feature, please let us know. We are always happy to include additional groups/forums in our summaries, but be aware that not every group can be featured every week.
In any case, lets get right down to it and get everyone caught up to date on what they may have missed last week...
When is Restoration the Right Move?
A
warped Empire Strikes Back store display bell was successfully
flattened to improve its appearance and then sent for grading, which prompted an interesting thread in the Star Wars Displays and Advertising group last week. The discussion centered on when restoration is appropriate for a vintage
Star Wars collectible. Topics included restoration, preservation and
their impact on the value and desirability of a collectible. Different
techniques for pressing a warped display were also discussed including
professional paper restoration services. The
general consensus among collectors is that whichever technique of
restoration is used, it needs to be documented and the information passed on
to future owners.
The full thread can be found here:
Further reading on the Archive:
How Significant is Grading on a Unique or Rare Pre-production Piece in a Hyper-condition Conscious Hobby?
Follow
the different perspectives on the importance of a grade given to a rare
pre-production piece compared to a mass produced toy. And discover for
yourself if the unique nature of a
one-of-a-kind piece obviates the need for a grade.
The full thread can be found here:
Additional reading:
A Limelight Worth a Look: Store Displays
Relive the excitement of the vibrant advertising that enamored a generation of children. Joshua
Buell limelights his impressive collection of vintage Star Wars store
displays in a thread from the Star Wars Advertising and Displays group, featuring over a dozen early and rare displays pictured
together.
The full thread can be found here:
Further Reading on the Archive:
A Boxed Set of Kenner’s Earliest Star Wars Store Displays Discovered
Before
Kenner had time to create their own store displays, they repurposed the
large Star Wars Standees produced by Factors, by applying a blue Kenner label to the base of each one, and shipped them to
retailers. For the first time, a set of these early displays was recently found in
their original Kenner shipping box.
The full thread can be found here:
Further Reading on the Archive:
RocketFett Sets New Record
As you might recall from Issue #3 of the Star Wars Community Digest, Hake's Auction House auctioned off a rare Rocket-Firing Boba Fett prototype this week. While the RocketFett has achieved a mythic status in the hobby -- despite it being far more common than just about every other type of pre-production item -- they are usually sold through private sales. As such, the entire community was glued to their screens to see what it would bring at an open and public auction. And that answer was... (drum roll please)... $86,383.47!
Needless to say, it's not every day that a vintage Star Wars toy nearly tops $100,000, so the collecting community exploded with threads discussing it.
One such thread can be found in the Imperial Commissary group, here:
RocketFett auction results discussion
Additional reading on RocketFetts:
Pawn Stars: Rare Boba Fett Action Figure Prototype
Tommy Garvey and John Alvarez Firing a Vintage Prototype RocketFett
Rocket Firing Boba Fett (L-Slot Version) First Shot
Boba Fett and Battlestar Galactica - The Firing Missile CrisisPawn Stars: Rare Boba Fett Action Figure Prototype
Tommy Garvey and John Alvarez Firing a Vintage Prototype RocketFett
Rocket Firing Boba Fett (L-Slot Version) First Shot
Ethics of Selling Through PMs
As the hobby gets larger, one of the issues which comes up again and again is ethics. The community is always growing and in that growth, longtime hobby practices and standards are being forced to change. And whenever there is change and new ways of doing things, there is bound to be controversy.
As such, it's always interesting when collectors try to establish where ethical lines are now being drawn and why. Such was the case in a thread in The Imperial Commissary last week. In this case, it's discussing whether or not it is ethical to sell privately through PM, rather than publicly in the sale thread itself.
The full thread can be found here:
Selling Through PM
Further Reading:
Hypothetical Ethics Question: Do You Have to Sell to the First Person Who Replies?
Friend or Foe? Either Way, it's Delicious!
As recurring readers of The Star Wars Community Digest have probably realized, we are big fans of things we've never seen before. Such was the case in the Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Vintage Collecting Group last week, when this awesome Empire Strikes Back candy display from Australia was shared.
The full thread can be found here:
ESB Candy Display
Further reading on the Archive:
List of candy items in the Archive Database
Our Star Wars Community Digest Time Capsule Thread for this Issue:
Every now and again, there is a debate that no one remembers even happened. Such was the case with this debate from 1982.
To set the stage for you, in 1982 Star Wars was not available in a recorded form, in any video format. So, fans couldn't just watch it in the comfort of their living room as many times as they wanted. The Trilogy (or the first 2 episodes of it, anyway) existed only in theaters, and fans had to go see it as many times as they could, because once it left theaters, it might not return. And after that point, it would exist only in their memory. That divorce between fandom and having 24/7 access to the basis of that fandom though, occasionally produced some rather odd results.
The Star Wars fan community (the collecting hobby did not yet exist as a separate entity) was having several debates in 1982. Mainly:
1. Is Vader really Luke's father?
2. Who is "The Other"?
And finally 3. Is it "Clone Wars"? Or "Colon Wars"?
Since ANH was no longer available to fans to check, the debate was apparently a real one. And because there seemed to be no other evidence of "clones" in ANH or ESB, the "Colon" version of the line was evidently gaining acceptance with some in the community. They even decided that "Colon" must be short for "Colonial," and that Obi-Wan and Luke's father must have been Colonial Soldiers.
Of course, fans could have obviously just checked the script or read the novelization, but logic has never stopped a Star Wars fan for long.
Here are a couple of threads from the net.sf-lovers newsgroup, which briefly discuss the debate.
Darth Vader = Good Guy
Clone Wars in SW/ANH and SW/TESB
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