No, it doesn't all suck. And what better way to remember that it doesn't suck than celebrating the Archive all...year...long! For the first installment of our Editor Interviews, we're joined by Gus Lopez and Ron Salvatore.
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OFFICIAL BLOG of the Star Wars Collectors Archive
Celebrating 30 years of bridging geographical and generational gaps between collectors in fun, educational and accessible ways.
Tuesday, July 23, 2024
Thursday, July 18, 2024
A Love Letter to The Star Wars Collectors Archive on Its 30th Anniversary
David writes:
In Mike Mensinger’s entry for the AT-AT Driver hand-painted hardcopy, he shared photos of the front and back of the prototype, as well as an “exploded” view revealing the unpainted areas where the separated limbs connected to the torso. And he provided a side-by-side comparison shot showing the paint differences between the hardcopy and the production figure. For many of us, having access to see even one prototype was a gift. And the Archive offered the rare opportunity to view hundreds of pre-production Kenner pieces, as well as the packaging artwork, product concepts and proof cards.
When it came to the unproduced prototypes, the Archive was one of the earliest resources to focus on the Rocket-Firing Boba Fett figure. It also had a section devoted to Power of the Force carded samples that never reached retail outlets. Through the site, we were able to get a glimpse of what could have been - if the 12” figures continued through The Empire Strikes Back, and if the Droids and Ewoks animated lines were given additional waves of all-new characters.
When visiting a region for the first time, it helps to understand the language spoken there. So I was immediately drawn to the site’s Lexicon. Chris Georgoulias and Isaac Lew oversaw the Lexicon, and aimed to define the terminology used by the Kenner designers and more informed collectors in order to “make smarter and better collectors out of everyone.”
And although I could not fully grasp many of the concepts at the time, I knew that being exposed to these terms would help me to see the larger picture eventually. In the entry for “acetate,” Ron Salvatore mentioned that one Kenner sculptor preferred this hard, plastic-like material to the more common medium of wax. I had no idea that the starting point for the action figures was a wax model, and was fascinated by the fact that a sculptor had mastered the art of carving into acetate.
And the Lexicon further illustrated its terms with actual illustrations - the entry for acetate contained links to examples within the Kenner line across three different scales. As a collector, I was able to see how a sculptor created the large-sized 12” C-3PO, as well as the 3.75” General Madine figure I owned as a child and the unproduced Power Droid miniature for the Micro Collection.
Chris Georgoulias used his knowledge of engineering and tooling to explain some of the more technical terms in a way that would make sense to your average collector. And these entries were pieces of a puzzle, that when laid out in front of you, gave you a fuller understanding of how the toys we loved were made.
One of the most unique segments of the Archive was Chris G’s Toy Shop Scrapbook. For many collectors in the 1990s and early 2000s, Toy Shop magazine offered a treasure trove of rare and unproduced prototypes and production pieces through the ads that graced each issue’s pages.
Chris created an online scrapbook, scanning the unique ads he saved and cataloging them by year. Each page was a collection of the names and phone numbers of the sellers, as well as the items that were sold at set prices or were auctioned by phone bids. Next to each page’s link, Chris mentioned some of the noteworthy items featured in it.
A December 1991 ad offered an FX-7 carded figure sample from Toy Fair, on an unproduced Power of the Force card. The price was $250. A carded mock-up of a Rebel Commando prototype on an Empire Strikes Back Lando Calrissian proof card had an asking price of $300 in the July 1993 issue. And the ads from December 1996 featured a carded Vlix for $2,000, as well as a hand-painted hardcopy of the Power of the Force 2 Han Stormtrooper mail-away figure for $250.
Aware of the gradual but inevitable shift toward online retail at the turn of the century, Chris captured the last vestiges of the era of print sales in his scanned scrapbook. And it was through Chris’ foresight to share these images on the Archive that I and many other collectors have learned more about the items over the past three decades: what they were, when they were sold, and their values at that time.
The Special Features section was truly a group effort, and showcased many of the contributors to the Archive through their research and discoveries. One of the earliest pages I studied was “A Collector’s Guide to Kenner Baggies,” a collaboration between Bill Wills and Todd DeMartino. It not only highlighted the varieties of heat-sealed and taped plastic bags used, but ranked each bagged figure by rarity, where a Category 1 was the most common and a Category 6 was for pre-production samples in which only a few existed.
In an article about Star Wars concept models, Ron Salvatore guided us through the history of the earliest versions of some of the most iconic toys, with corresponding images of the models used in Kenner photography. When it came to bootlegs, Joe Yglesias covered the existing Model Trem figures from Brazil, and John Alvarez wrote about ones from Argentina and Eastern Europe. And with the feature “A Look Inside Kenner’s Plans for 1985 and 1986,” Lisa Stevens and Vic Wertz showed us the Star Wars line that the designers pitched unsuccessfully to Lucasfilm after 1985’s Power of the Force.
And in each entry, the names of the contributors were more than mere bylines. Their individual personalities surfaced in a satisfying way. The writing styles were more informal, more conversational, and some of the articles were marked with a sharp wit that made them connective and addictive.
Reading an article felt more like speaking with a fellow collector, a fellow friend, and learning something new in the process. I was often struck by the quality of each entry, and how much I enjoyed reading through full sections. It was the contributors who made the entries meaningful.
At some point that year, I made a promise to myself. If I became knowledgeable enough about collecting, I vowed to follow in the footsteps of these writers and collectors who came before me, and to contribute to the hobby in a meaningful way. I was a padawan who longed to be like the knights and masters around me, and I aimed to find a way to give back by helping others learn more about collecting Star Wars memorabilia.
Do you remember discovering The Star Wars Collectors Archive for the first time?
You may have clicked on it during the early days of the internet, when the site’s creator, Gus Lopez, introduced it to the online world in 1994 as “Toys R Gus.” Or, you may have found it in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as you searched for the latest breaking news on the production of the prequel films.
If the promise of a sequel trilogy reignited your interest in Star Wars, you may have visited the Archive in 2015, along with a wave of collectors eager to reconnect with the franchise. Or the site may have landed on your radar during the pandemic-era collectibles boom of the 2020s.
However, if you’re a latecomer, this very article may be your introduction to this amazing resource on its 30th anniversary.
Or, like me, you may have discovered it a year before George Lucas sold his franchise to the Walt Disney Corporation.
In 2011, a confluence of events led me to channel my lifelong Star Wars fandom into collecting the action figures again. Feeling the pangs of nostalgia for my favorite childhood toys, along with having disposable income as well as the time during my commutes to search for buys on eBay, I became a devoted collector and sought to learn about the line that had stirred my imagination in my formative years.
Committing to the world of Kenner figures, I searched for any information I could find online. And the website that resonated with me the most was The Star Wars Collectors Archive.
I remember my initial expectations for collector websites were low. I envisioned seeing Geocities-era tributes to a hobby likely long forgotten, with a smattering of images accompanied by simple captions. I longed for depth, but assumed I would have to settle for brief, anodyne resources. But I was hungry for knowledge about the collectibles, and during those earliest days, even the barest of offerings was exciting.
Visiting the Archive, however, I ate heartily.
The site was set up like a theme park. Scrolling through the various sections was like walking from land to land, seeing familiar characters and encountering all new experiences. It was brimming with information, and was overwhelming in the best possible way.
I made it a point at the end of every night to spend at least twenty minutes on the site before heading to bed. My goal was not to rush through the entries, but to really digest the descriptions on every page.
My memory of discovering the Archive has remained vibrant, and the feeling has stayed with me for over a decade. The days of coming home from work or being out with friends and closing out the night with a tour through a handful of entries was exciting, and like our hobby, provided an outlet that veered from life’s normal rhythms and pressures.
The idea that these entries and features were written by collectors inspired me. They were not published in a guidebook by Kenner. They were not part of some larger company’s offering to advertise or detail its own product. Instead, they were created by those who grew up with the toys, who had a connection to the films that birthed them, and who found the action figures as interesting as I did.
I spent the first few evenings clicking on various sections of the site, just to get a taste of what awaited me. But I focused largely on the U.S. Kenner carded figures in the Toys section, because they were and still are my central interest.
In that section, Dan Flarida crafted a guide to differentiating the Kenner cardbacks. Ron Salvatore, Todd Chamberlain and Will Grief did a series of entries around the Kenner three-pack figure assortments, items I had never seen in stores and didn’t know existed. And I was shocked to see Australian-only releases of the Gamorrean Guard and the AT-AT Driver on Power of the Force cardbacks.
The Archive also introduced me to images of carded versions of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi with their incredibly rare double-telescoping lightsabers, and I dreamed of owning the trio someday. And I paid careful attention to the photos and descriptions in the section about fake Star Wars figures, determined to avoid those pitfalls with the help of these experienced collectors’ words of wisdom.
Broc Walker’s entry of his Empire Strikes Back run of 41A-back carded figures was one I revisited often. Through his photo and description, I learned that the carded Leia Bespin bearing the Survival Kit Offer was the hardest figure for him to obtain. But seeing examples of all 41 figures, along with proof cards, quality control samples, the store display, the shipping carton and the original art for the cardback illustrated the extensive possibilities awaiting me in curating a focus.
The Prototypes section of the Archive exposed me to a world of collecting I didn’t know existed, with pieces that had survived and somehow had fallen into the hands of collectors.
When it came to the unproduced prototypes, the Archive was one of the earliest resources to focus on the Rocket-Firing Boba Fett figure. It also had a section devoted to Power of the Force carded samples that never reached retail outlets. Through the site, we were able to get a glimpse of what could have been - if the 12” figures continued through The Empire Strikes Back, and if the Droids and Ewoks animated lines were given additional waves of all-new characters.
——————
After exhausting the action figure entries, I explored the Toy Information and Reference section, which was maintained by Gus Lopez. The word “comprehensive” began many of the articles’ titles, which is exactly what a collector with a researcher’s brain desires from a reference section.
And although I could not fully grasp many of the concepts at the time, I knew that being exposed to these terms would help me to see the larger picture eventually. In the entry for “acetate,” Ron Salvatore mentioned that one Kenner sculptor preferred this hard, plastic-like material to the more common medium of wax. I had no idea that the starting point for the action figures was a wax model, and was fascinated by the fact that a sculptor had mastered the art of carving into acetate.
And the Lexicon further illustrated its terms with actual illustrations - the entry for acetate contained links to examples within the Kenner line across three different scales. As a collector, I was able to see how a sculptor created the large-sized 12” C-3PO, as well as the 3.75” General Madine figure I owned as a child and the unproduced Power Droid miniature for the Micro Collection.
One of the most unique segments of the Archive was Chris G’s Toy Shop Scrapbook. For many collectors in the 1990s and early 2000s, Toy Shop magazine offered a treasure trove of rare and unproduced prototypes and production pieces through the ads that graced each issue’s pages.
Chris created an online scrapbook, scanning the unique ads he saved and cataloging them by year. Each page was a collection of the names and phone numbers of the sellers, as well as the items that were sold at set prices or were auctioned by phone bids. Next to each page’s link, Chris mentioned some of the noteworthy items featured in it.
A December 1991 ad offered an FX-7 carded figure sample from Toy Fair, on an unproduced Power of the Force card. The price was $250. A carded mock-up of a Rebel Commando prototype on an Empire Strikes Back Lando Calrissian proof card had an asking price of $300 in the July 1993 issue. And the ads from December 1996 featured a carded Vlix for $2,000, as well as a hand-painted hardcopy of the Power of the Force 2 Han Stormtrooper mail-away figure for $250.
Aware of the gradual but inevitable shift toward online retail at the turn of the century, Chris captured the last vestiges of the era of print sales in his scanned scrapbook. And it was through Chris’ foresight to share these images on the Archive that I and many other collectors have learned more about the items over the past three decades: what they were, when they were sold, and their values at that time.
The Special Features section was truly a group effort, and showcased many of the contributors to the Archive through their research and discoveries. One of the earliest pages I studied was “A Collector’s Guide to Kenner Baggies,” a collaboration between Bill Wills and Todd DeMartino. It not only highlighted the varieties of heat-sealed and taped plastic bags used, but ranked each bagged figure by rarity, where a Category 1 was the most common and a Category 6 was for pre-production samples in which only a few existed.
In an article about Star Wars concept models, Ron Salvatore guided us through the history of the earliest versions of some of the most iconic toys, with corresponding images of the models used in Kenner photography. When it came to bootlegs, Joe Yglesias covered the existing Model Trem figures from Brazil, and John Alvarez wrote about ones from Argentina and Eastern Europe. And with the feature “A Look Inside Kenner’s Plans for 1985 and 1986,” Lisa Stevens and Vic Wertz showed us the Star Wars line that the designers pitched unsuccessfully to Lucasfilm after 1985’s Power of the Force.
And in each entry, the names of the contributors were more than mere bylines. Their individual personalities surfaced in a satisfying way. The writing styles were more informal, more conversational, and some of the articles were marked with a sharp wit that made them connective and addictive.
Reading an article felt more like speaking with a fellow collector, a fellow friend, and learning something new in the process. I was often struck by the quality of each entry, and how much I enjoyed reading through full sections. It was the contributors who made the entries meaningful.
At some point that year, I made a promise to myself. If I became knowledgeable enough about collecting, I vowed to follow in the footsteps of these writers and collectors who came before me, and to contribute to the hobby in a meaningful way. I was a padawan who longed to be like the knights and masters around me, and I aimed to find a way to give back by helping others learn more about collecting Star Wars memorabilia.
————————
In addition to discovering the Archive, I also stumbled upon the Star Wars Collectors Archive Podcast within the first few months of becoming a collector. Also known as the ‘Chive Cast, the monthly audio magazine devoted to Star Wars and collecting was a perfect partnership between hosts Skye Paine and Steve Danley. In each episode, Skye and Steve focused on one character from Kenner’s action figure line, sharing their unique takes that were as funny as they were educational.
The ‘Chive Cast was an extension of the Archive. It delivered information through conversation. I devoured episodes during my hours-long commutes to and from New York City. And through the alchemy a medium like podcasting provides, I felt like I was firmly in the company of friends and collectors. I felt like I knew them, even though we had never met. The podcast put voices to the names of those within our collecting community, including many of the authors of the Archive’s articles.
The ‘Chive Cast offered me a seat at the collectors’ table. It took the concepts, the history and the terminology found within the Archive and put it to practical use in following the conversations Steve and Skye had with their guests. The pre-production process of a toy began to make more sense, and I developed an appreciation of so many areas of collecting through their passionate discussions.
But maybe most importantly, the ‘Chive Cast prepared me for the future conversations I’d have with the hosts and our fellow collectors, when I finally met each one in person.
———————
In 2014 on the 20th anniversary of the Archive, the editors introduced a new addition to the website. The official SWCA Blog was born, and gave contributors a space to create long-form articles around specific collecting topics. The blog also became the site’s home for the ‘Chive Cast’s episodes and updates, complete with images and additional written content. 
Mike Lonegran and Pete Fitzke ran the popular MarketWatch segment on the blog, giving context to the special toys and prototypes that sold at high-profile auctions and on eBay each month. Pete also did a series of collector spotlight interviews, and his conversation with Tim Eckholdt about Tim’s 2D and 3D pre-production runs is one I’ve read numerous times over the years.
And when it comes to all-encompassing coverage, the blog continues to be a powerful resource for the current decade. In 2023, Yehuda Kleinman published the largest and most comprehensive look at vintage Star Wars watches. And this year, Jonathan McElwain did a report similar in scope about the Japanese Coca-Cola campaign of 1978.
In addition to offering deep dives into various areas of the hobby, part of the excitement in reading the blog was the revelatory information that our peers uncovered in their pursuits.
A 2016 entry by Ron Salvatore highlighted how Kenner may have reused the wax sculpts from some of the most iconic Star Wars action figures to create new ones for its Empire Strikes Back line. Ron’s equally interesting 2022 blog post on the Early Bird Kit not only gave insight into how the novel “IOU gift” was viewed by parents and retailers in the late 1970s, but also unearthed new information, like the fact that 500,000 of those legendary kits were destroyed by Kenner.
These types of revelations and the work that went into crafting each article for the enjoyment of other collectors made the blog relevant to a community utilizing new social media platforms, giving all of us a chance to further discuss the topics to our heart’s content.
In many ways, the Archive marked the starting point of my time as an adult collector of Star Wars memorabilia. The blessings from discovering the site back in 2011 continue to this day in profound ways. And the most meaningful ones are the friendships that developed.
I took my first Star Wars-themed trip six years after I began collecting, to the April 2017 Celebration Orlando convention. The Archive charity party was held on the Thursday night of that weekend event, and it was there where I met many of the site’s contributors for the first time.
It may sound silly, but I was as excited to meet them as I was to meet Mark Hamill.
I wanted to shake their hands, give them hugs and tell them how their work within the hobby impacted me personally. I wanted to thank them for teaching me, for guiding me and for connecting me to collecting. They had, in fact, made me a “smarter and a better collector” in the process. And their enthusiasm and commitment to collecting further ignited my passion for the toys of my childhood.
In attending the Archive Party, I felt like I was visiting old friends for the very first time. The worlds of writing and podcasting are intimate realms. And I had spent the past six years listening to their discussions, and reading how they viewed the collectibles and our community.
A few months later, I attended my first collectors club meetup in New York, at the home of Ron Salvatore. As I stood in his house, surrounded by members of the Empire State Star Wars Collectors Club, I recalled driving to a toy show by myself a year earlier, listening to a ‘Chive Cast episode recorded from a meetup Ron hosted. The idea of attending collectors meetups seemed like an impossibility, like they were held on another planet. At the time, I couldn’t imagine how I would ever be a part of anything like that.
And yet, that day, I was viewing items in Ron’s collection in person, ones that I had studied endlessly on the Archive. And by the time I had left Ron’s home, I was a member of the Empire State Club, with an entirely new group of friends who are like family to me today.
I’ve heard people say that it gets harder to make friends as you get older. Thanks to the wonderful collectors in our hobby, I can truly say I’ve never experienced that problem. In the past seven years since my first convention and club meetup, I’ve spent so many moments in their company. We’ve traveled to different regions of the country together, for toy shows and collector events. They’ve introduced me to a new outdoor activity, as we’ve hiked the Hudson Valley and Georgia’s Kennesaw Mountain.
We’ve attended large group events together, like the New York Annual, ICE and Rogue Fun.
And we’ve spent countless weekends at the homes of friends, building lasting memories.
Becoming a collector absolutely changed my life. At times, I felt like Luke Skywalker - at home one minute and then whisked away on some unforgettable, out-of-this world adventure.
In 2019, as part of the promise to give back to the community that freely shared so much information with me, I created my own Star Wars podcast. For the past six years, Star Wars: Prototypes and Production has been my creative outlet to provide commentary and information about the films, series, memorabilia and community events that make up our Star Wars fandom. I have been fortunate to have had many of the Archive contributors appear on the podcast, sharing their knowledge on yet another platform. And I am honored to have recorded conversations with them and to call them my friends.
And recently, I was invited to become part of the Archive team, to write articles for the blog I’ve read for the past decade. I’ll be sharing my experiences from many of the toy show trips and collectors meetups and events I attend, and I plan on doing some special collecting-themed entries as well. My goal is to spotlight the heart and imagination of our community, and why the experiences are just as important as the collectibles.
Being a part of the writing team and working on the blog is a true fulfillment of the promise I made back in 2011. I had hoped to be knowledgeable enough someday to contribute to the larger collecting conversation and to educate, encourage and connect others in the process. And I’m honored to do it this year, alongside those who educated and encouraged me for more than a decade.
Thirty years is an incredible milestone. It is a testament to the legacy of the Star Wars franchise, as well as to the power of the memorabilia from the various onscreen stories. The articles written by the Archive contributors were not only informative and entertaining, but they have affected me and so many other collectors along the way.
Seeing the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” introduce a Star Wars film still captures the anticipatory excitement I experienced as a child.
And I still feel that same joy in seeing the star field background of the Archive’s main page, and wondering which new part of the galaxy we’ll explore next.
*Stay tuned for more on celebrating Thirty Years of the Archive. If you’d like to learn more about the many contributors to the Archive, you can read their biographies here.
The SWCA Blog was the next evolution in feeding the collecting community’s desire for in-depth knowledge about the history of Star Wars events and memorabilia. I never knew which topic the writers would cover next, but the standard they set over the previous twenty years ensured it would be a quality read.
In one early article, Tommy Garvey examined the timeline of the online collecting discussions around Star Wars, which began on the Usenet groups and transitioned to other platforms as the internet evolved. In another memorable blog post, Tommy took readers through the creation process of a Star Wars action figure - literally from concept to screen to collectible - using one of the most extensive toy runs known to the Star Wars collecting world.
Amy Sjoberg gave collectors an inside look at how the first International Collector Event (ICE) materialized in Seattle in 2013, kicking off more than a decade of some of the most memorable meetups around the country. Stéphane Faucourt detailed the challenge of assembling a run of offerless Empire Strikes Back carded figures. And Stephen Ward interviewed Kim Simmons, the photographer responsible for the majority of the Kenner toy packaging.
Mike Lonegran and Pete Fitzke ran the popular MarketWatch segment on the blog, giving context to the special toys and prototypes that sold at high-profile auctions and on eBay each month. Pete also did a series of collector spotlight interviews, and his conversation with Tim Eckholdt about Tim’s 2D and 3D pre-production runs is one I’ve read numerous times over the years.
And when it comes to all-encompassing coverage, the blog continues to be a powerful resource for the current decade. In 2023, Yehuda Kleinman published the largest and most comprehensive look at vintage Star Wars watches. And this year, Jonathan McElwain did a report similar in scope about the Japanese Coca-Cola campaign of 1978.
In addition to offering deep dives into various areas of the hobby, part of the excitement in reading the blog was the revelatory information that our peers uncovered in their pursuits.
A 2016 entry by Ron Salvatore highlighted how Kenner may have reused the wax sculpts from some of the most iconic Star Wars action figures to create new ones for its Empire Strikes Back line. Ron’s equally interesting 2022 blog post on the Early Bird Kit not only gave insight into how the novel “IOU gift” was viewed by parents and retailers in the late 1970s, but also unearthed new information, like the fact that 500,000 of those legendary kits were destroyed by Kenner.
These types of revelations and the work that went into crafting each article for the enjoyment of other collectors made the blog relevant to a community utilizing new social media platforms, giving all of us a chance to further discuss the topics to our heart’s content.
———————
In many ways, the Archive marked the starting point of my time as an adult collector of Star Wars memorabilia. The blessings from discovering the site back in 2011 continue to this day in profound ways. And the most meaningful ones are the friendships that developed.
I took my first Star Wars-themed trip six years after I began collecting, to the April 2017 Celebration Orlando convention. The Archive charity party was held on the Thursday night of that weekend event, and it was there where I met many of the site’s contributors for the first time.
It may sound silly, but I was as excited to meet them as I was to meet Mark Hamill.
I wanted to shake their hands, give them hugs and tell them how their work within the hobby impacted me personally. I wanted to thank them for teaching me, for guiding me and for connecting me to collecting. They had, in fact, made me a “smarter and a better collector” in the process. And their enthusiasm and commitment to collecting further ignited my passion for the toys of my childhood.
In attending the Archive Party, I felt like I was visiting old friends for the very first time. The worlds of writing and podcasting are intimate realms. And I had spent the past six years listening to their discussions, and reading how they viewed the collectibles and our community.
A few months later, I attended my first collectors club meetup in New York, at the home of Ron Salvatore. As I stood in his house, surrounded by members of the Empire State Star Wars Collectors Club, I recalled driving to a toy show by myself a year earlier, listening to a ‘Chive Cast episode recorded from a meetup Ron hosted. The idea of attending collectors meetups seemed like an impossibility, like they were held on another planet. At the time, I couldn’t imagine how I would ever be a part of anything like that.
And yet, that day, I was viewing items in Ron’s collection in person, ones that I had studied endlessly on the Archive. And by the time I had left Ron’s home, I was a member of the Empire State Club, with an entirely new group of friends who are like family to me today.
———————
I’ve heard people say that it gets harder to make friends as you get older. Thanks to the wonderful collectors in our hobby, I can truly say I’ve never experienced that problem. In the past seven years since my first convention and club meetup, I’ve spent so many moments in their company. We’ve traveled to different regions of the country together, for toy shows and collector events. They’ve introduced me to a new outdoor activity, as we’ve hiked the Hudson Valley and Georgia’s Kennesaw Mountain.
We’ve attended large group events together, like the New York Annual, ICE and Rogue Fun.
And we’ve spent countless weekends at the homes of friends, building lasting memories.
Becoming a collector absolutely changed my life. At times, I felt like Luke Skywalker - at home one minute and then whisked away on some unforgettable, out-of-this world adventure.
In 2019, as part of the promise to give back to the community that freely shared so much information with me, I created my own Star Wars podcast. For the past six years, Star Wars: Prototypes and Production has been my creative outlet to provide commentary and information about the films, series, memorabilia and community events that make up our Star Wars fandom. I have been fortunate to have had many of the Archive contributors appear on the podcast, sharing their knowledge on yet another platform. And I am honored to have recorded conversations with them and to call them my friends.
And recently, I was invited to become part of the Archive team, to write articles for the blog I’ve read for the past decade. I’ll be sharing my experiences from many of the toy show trips and collectors meetups and events I attend, and I plan on doing some special collecting-themed entries as well. My goal is to spotlight the heart and imagination of our community, and why the experiences are just as important as the collectibles.
Being a part of the writing team and working on the blog is a true fulfillment of the promise I made back in 2011. I had hoped to be knowledgeable enough someday to contribute to the larger collecting conversation and to educate, encourage and connect others in the process. And I’m honored to do it this year, alongside those who educated and encouraged me for more than a decade.
Thirty years is an incredible milestone. It is a testament to the legacy of the Star Wars franchise, as well as to the power of the memorabilia from the various onscreen stories. The articles written by the Archive contributors were not only informative and entertaining, but they have affected me and so many other collectors along the way.
Seeing the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” introduce a Star Wars film still captures the anticipatory excitement I experienced as a child.
And I still feel that same joy in seeing the star field background of the Archive’s main page, and wondering which new part of the galaxy we’ll explore next.
*Stay tuned for more on celebrating Thirty Years of the Archive. If you’d like to learn more about the many contributors to the Archive, you can read their biographies here.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
'Chive Cast Blog Log Pod Episode 19 - The Rich World of Japanese Star Wars Coca-Cola Bottle Caps
Jonathan "Johnny Too-Much" McElwain joins the pod to talk about this ever expanding world filled with shirts, bottles and geography (as featured in his incredibly in-depth blog post that was recently published).
Monday, April 8, 2024
Drink Coca-Cola Star Wars: The Japanese Coca-Cola Campaign of 1978
Jonathan writes:
The Basics
Star Wars was released in Japan on June 24, 1978, more than a year after it premiered in the United States. A massive promotion involving Coca-Cola brand beverages (Coca-Cola, Fanta, and Sprite) coincided with the film’s highly anticipated Japanese release.
This advertisement, from the pages of Weekly Shōnen Magazine, dated July 2, 1978 announced the campaign.
During the campaign, which ran until the end of August, glass bottles of Coca-Cola brand beverages were topped with collectible metal bottle caps, also known as crown caps or crowns.
The bottle caps were the standard pry-off type (not twist-off) type and usually bear the scars of removal. The undersides of the bottle caps featured a peel-away plastic liner that was an essential part of the bottle-sealing process. In an example of Japanese attention to detail, the liners feature a raised grip with tear-out grooves to facilitate removal. Printed promotional materials included illustrations of the removal process.
As far as I can tell, this style of liner (with grip and grooves) debuted with the 1978 Star Wars campaign. During the Summer of 1977, Coca-Cola offered a Supercar campaign with a set of 100 bottle caps to collect. Promotional materials from that campaign show conventional liners, without any grip or grooves.
The liners are numbered and appear to have been available with numbers ranging from 1 to 24. Presumably the numbering was used for quality control identification during the liner production process. However, that is speculation on my part.
There are at least two different style variations of the liners.
It’s uncommon to find the liners from the Star Wars campaign for a couple reasons. First, the liners were disposable and many consumers would have trashed them. Second, the liners were utilized to participate in the mail-in lottery and purchase aspects of the campaign that are discussed later in this post.
As far as I can tell, the liners used in the Star Wars campaign are unique. During the Summer of 1979, Coca-Cola offered the Red Summer campaign. Promotional paperwork from that promotion included illustrations of liners that feature raised grips and grooves, similar to those from the Star Wars promotion. However, the Red Summer liners are distinguished by the addition of two stars. Note that I haven’t found any of these liners to confirm that the liners produced match the illustrations, but I expect that they did.
To be clear, these liners with stars were not part of the Star Wars campaign.
As with the Star Wars promotion, the 1979 Red Summer liners were utilized in the lottery aspect of the campaign. [1] Presumably, the design change to add the stars would have ensured that only liners from the then-current promotion could be used.
In most cases, peeling away the liner from the underside of the bottle cap revealed one of 50 different images. One of the 50 caps features the familiar Star Wars logo, while the remaining 49 caps feature a photographic image of a scene from the film.
Although the illustrations of the bottle caps on the advertising materials depict full size photo images, the circular images on the production bottle caps are quite a bit smaller than the available flat surface area. Within the ring that surrounding the photo image, “★ スター・ウォーズ ★” (which translates to “★ Star Wars ★”) is printed above the image and descriptive text below the image identifies the character, creature, or scene in the photo. There is no descriptive text below the logo cap.
The bottle caps can be found in two different metallic tones. Most caps are gold-toned, consistent with the illustrations on the advertising materials for the campaign. Less commonly, the bottle caps are silver-toned.
It’s worth noting that there seems to be a subset of images that are harder to find than others. This is anecdotal, based on my personal experience buying bulk lots of caps over a long period of time. While I wouldn’t call any of the images rare, there are definitely some that turn up with less frequency than others. The Star Wars logo cap is among this group. In spite of this, assembling the basic set of 50 bottle caps is an achievable goal, with a bit of persistence.
Lucky consumers peeled away the plastic liners and found one of a handful of instant-winner prize caps. Prize caps included a variety of cash winners, in denominations of 10, 20, 50, 100, or 500 Yen.
Other prize caps included instant-winner caps redeemable for a Free Bottle or a Free T-shirt.
I’ve read that the R2-D2 AM radio was also available via an instant-winner prize cap. However, I haven’t actually seen evidence of this in any of the advertising materials that I’ve collected or reviewed. The individual bottlers seem to have had latitude in how they executed the promotion, so it is certainly possible that one or more of them offered the radio as an instant-win prize.
While the Star Wars campaign took place throughout July and August of 1978, the redemption window for the prize caps extended into the fall of 1978. Most bottlers used a redemption expiration date of September 30, 1978, while some allowed for redemption until October 31, 1978. This image show caps with the two redemption dates.
Note that 1978 was year 53 in the Shōwa era.
The available range of cash winners varied by bottler. From what I can tell, the number of bottlers who offered the Free Bottle and Free T-Shirt bottle caps was quite limited.
As you might expect, all of the prize caps are pretty challenging to find. It would have been an unusual consumer (you know, the obsessive collector type) who kept those caps, rather than redeeming them for the prize.
The matrix below is my work-in-progress list of the available prize caps (click the image to enlarge).
Note that the prize caps matrix is based primarily on my personal collection, supplemented with a review of available advertising materials. It’s a good start, but it is based on a limited pool of data and is something that I’m actively working to develop. If you’ve got variations that I haven’t captured, I’m definitely interested to learn what you have.
Bottlers
In Japan, Coca-Cola was available on a very limited basis as early as the 1910s as an imported product. Domestic production commenced early in the postwar era, but initially it exclusively served the Allied Occupation Forces. Distribution of Coca-Cola products expanded to the private sector in 1957. By 1978, Coca-Cola Japan had expanded to 17 bottlers, each covering a dedicated geographic region. [2]
Most bottlers served more than one Prefecture, but some only served a single Prefecture or, in the case of the Tokyo bottler, a single metropolitan area. This map shows all 17 bottlers and the regions which each covered.
Both matrices included in this post are color-coded to match the regional coloring on the map.
This is a comprehensive look at the beverages produced by Coca-Cola Japan in November 1978, just after the end of the Star Wars campaign.
The red stars denote the beverages that were available from the Okinawa Coca-Cola Bottling Co., Ltd. Each bottler had some discretion about its specific product offerings.
Bottle Cap Anatomy
This is the part where things off the deep end.
When I initially started collecting these bottle caps in 2008, my goal was simply to complete the basic set of 50 images. From the outset, I had a passive interest in flavor variations. But, there is something about the satisfaction derived from assembling complete sets that is really appealing to many collectors, myself included. Before I had finished the basic set of 50 images, I had decided that I really wanted to collect all 50 images for each available flavor as a marathon collecting goal. At the time, I thought there were six flavor variations to pursue.
Collecting my original mixed flavor set of 50 wasn’t too difficult. But, as I write this in 2024, sixteen years after starting this collection, I’ve only been able to complete four of the flavor sets. I’ve also expanded my knowledge of what was available and I’m now pursuing a total of eleven different variations (not just six).
The seven flavors included in the promotion were Coca-Cola, Fanta Apple, Fanta Club Soda, Fanta Grape, Fanta Golden Grape, Fanta Orange, and Sprite. Each bottler had some discretion about which specific products and sizes were included in the campaign. This information can be gleaned from the posters and other printed promotional materials.
The tops of the bottle caps are quite dense with information. The images below provide some translation and guidance to understand what it all means. These images are arranged from most-common (Coca-Cola) to least-common (Fanta Club Soda).
A note about rarity: Fanta Apple bottle caps are uncommon, while both Fanta Golden Grape and Fanta Club Soda bottle caps are rare. The advertising material for more than one bottler states that one or both of the latter two flavors were excluded from the promotion. Certainly not many children were consumers of Fanta Club Soda. It seems likely that those bottle caps would have been primarily consumed in restaurants and bars, where the bottle caps were less likely to have been saved.
The Star Wars campaign happened during a period in time when Fanta Grape was in transition. Fanta Grape was one of the original Japanese Fanta flavors, available to Japanese consumers since 1958. However, in response to consumer demands, artificial coloring agents were replaced with natural coloring agents for all Fanta flavors in 1975. [3] Concerns about the natural purple coloring agent proposed for Fanta Grape led to the flavor being temporarily removed from the Japanese market. Fanta Golden Grape (which was an amber colored beverage) was introduced to take the place of Fanta Grape. Think of it as the white wine of grape sodas.
Fanta Grape was reintroduced in 1977-1978 with natural coloring agents derived from grape skins. For some bottlers, the reintroduction of Fanta Grape began during the summer of 1977, as part of the Supercar promotion. This ambitious promotion was a precursor to the Star Wars campaign, with 100 different Supercar bottle caps from around the world to collect. Promotional materials for the campaign featured Japanese pop music duo Pink Lady.
The reintroduction of Fanta Grape expanded in 1978, with a heavy push during the Star Wars campaign. Unlike the other flavors, which have a uniform appearance regardless of bottler, the individual bottlers took different approaches with Fanta Grape. Both the Kinki and Sanyo bottlers used the conventional approach of black text on the upper half of the bottle cap. For the rest of the bottlers that I've documented, the text on upper half of the bottle cap is purple, possibly as a way to emphasize the new flavor. No bottlers produced both the black text variant and the purple text variant. Each bottler produced either one or the other.
The Chukyo, Kita Kyushu, Michinoku, Minami Kyushu, Nagano, and Shikoku bottlers featured both purple text and the word “new” repeating around the sides of the cap.
I consider the Fanta Grape with black text and Fanta Grape with purple text to be two separate variations, although both were actually the same flavor. Personally, I haven’t further subdivided the purple text caps with and without the repeating “new” text around the sides of the cap to be a separate variation, but your mileage may vary.
There was some overlap of availability of Fanta Golden Grape and the new Fanta Grape. The Shikoku bottler produced Star Wars caps in both flavors.
In total, there are eight flavor variations, including the two color variants for Fanta Grape.
The other three variations are those which include a pink ring within the area surrounding the upper 2/3 of the photo image on the underside of the bottle cap. These caps were produced solely by the Kinki Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Ltd, which served the Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo Prefectures within the Kansai (aka Kinki) region of Japan.
Two flavors were available with pink ring caps, Coca-Cola and Fanta Grape, and there are a total of three variations. On all of the Coca-Cola pink ring caps, “★ スター・ウォーズ ★” (translated as “★ Star Wars ★”) is printed in black within the pink ring above the image.
The Fanta Grape pink ring caps can be found both with and without “★ スター・ウォーズ ★” printed in black within the pink ring. For caps without this text, there is pink within pink text which is barely visible within the ring.
The pink within pink text reads “スターウォーズキャンペーン 昭和53年8月31日まで実施中”, which translates to “The ongoing Star Wars campaign ends on August 31, 1978.” Larger text centered within the pink ring reads “ハずれ” (Hazure).
In Japanese giveaways, there is a pairing of 当り (Atari), which means win/winner/hit and 外れ (Hazure), which means lose/loser/miss. If you look at the images above of the instant-winner prize caps, you’ll see 当り (Atari) at the center top, above the Yen denomination (or other prize).
My understanding is that a series of miscommunications led to the use of the pink ring during the initial production run of the Fanta Grape bottle caps for the Kinki bottler. Initially, the caps were printed with the pink text, but no pink ring. After it was determined that the pink Hazure text was not the desired appearance, the text was printed over using a pink ring. The intent was that the pink ring would obscure the text. This approach was pretty effective and explains why the pink within pink text is so hard to read.
The pink ring continued in use for the initial production runs, with “★ スター・ウォーズ ★” printed in black within the pink ring, but was later removed as a running change. So bottle caps produced by the Kinki bottler can be found both with and without the pink ring.
The matrix below is my work-in-progress list of the available bottler-flavor combinations (click the image to enlarge).
The bottler-flavor matrix is something that I’ve been working on for a long time. It is further developed than the prize caps matrix. I’m sure that there are other variations that I haven’t documented. I’m still adding to the matrix fairly regularly.
Here is a collage of the bottle-flavor variations in my current collection.
Many of the bottler-flavor combinations have minor variants denoted by an alphanumeric code which follows the bottler name. I believe that this code denotes the individual bottling plant.
My personal approach to collecting the bottler-flavor variations is to save one example of each that I find. The quantities of potential variants multiplies pretty quickly when you consider the numbers: 50 variants, 17 bottlers, up to 5 bottler codes per bottler, and up to 7 flavors per bottler.
Prizes
The Star Wars campaign involved a number of prizes. I’ve already mentioned a few of them in the discussion of the prize caps above. The main prize was the R2-D2 AM radio, which was widely available, but with regional differences in distribution. Some of the other prizes seem to have had more limited regional distribution.
Several of the bottlers offered free bottles of soda to lucky consumers. Free bottles were available with instant-win bottle caps from the Kinki and Hokuriku bottlers, and likely from some others that I haven’t yet documented. The Kinki bottler offered 2,155,000 free bottles, which could be redeemed for the winner’s choice of Coca-Cola, Fanta, or Sprite.
2,155,000 is a pretty astounding number, considering that the combined population of the Osaka, Kyoto, and Hyogo Prefectures was on the order of 16 million people at the time of the Star Wars campaign.
The Tokyo bottler offered free bottles of the new Fanta Grape with a redemption certificate.
I believe that these certificates may have been inserted into movie programs or otherwise distributed at theaters.
This sheet of die-cut sticker sheet seems to have been available from the Kinki bottler, but I haven’t found documentation of how it was made available.
The Kinki bottler offered 5,000 free T-shirts, which were available by redeeming an instant-win prize cap. The T-shirts could also be purchased for 1,000 Yen plus one bottle cap liner. Presumably some of the other bottlers offered T-shirts, but I don’t believe it was widely available from all bottlers.
The T-shirts are McGregor brand and, for the completist, can be found with two different tag styles. The transfer used on the T-shirts was produced by Factors Etc. Inc. of Bear, Delaware.
Consumers were encouraged to collect the set of 50 caps by advertising materials and by the availability of a plastic tray holder into which the caps could be inserted. Each position on the tray is labeled, such that the caps have specific positions where they should be placed. There are a few bottle caps with duplicate names that are interchangeable. There are three different Han Solo caps, three different C-3PO caps, and two different C-3PO & R2-D2 caps which can be placed interchangeably and still be placed “correctly.”
The tray was vacuformed from white plastic, with a blue header that features the Coca-Cola logo, Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter, and the Death Star. The trays are pretty flimsy and prone to cracking and breakage, especially around the perimeter.
I've bought and sold a number of these trays over the years. They are most frequently filled with bottle caps from the Kinki bottler, so I believe that this is another element of the promotion that had limited regional distribution.
Also available was a papercraft R2-D2 that could be assembled and used to store your hoard of bottle caps. So far, this premium has eluded me.
As mentioned above, the R2-D2 AM Radio was the main prize. It came packaged in a nice red, white, & blue box.
The radio was secured inside a two-part styrofoam insert.
The radio was manufactured by Fuji Electric. Like many white plastics of the era, the radio is prone to yellowing.
An instruction booklet and other paperwork was included with the radio.
The Kinki bottler offered a total of 2,900 Radios available via lottery. It was also possible to purchase a radio for 4,500 Yen plus 5 bottle cap liners. The details are explained on this tri-fold flyer.
The 2,900 Radios from the Kinki bottler were distributed via a series of 8 weekly lotteries. The initial lottery was held on July 15, 1978. Entries had to be postmarked by August 31, 1978.
One of the pages of the flyer could be removed and folded into an envelope to mail in for the weekly lottery. The page features red circles in the positions where the liners were to be affixed to the envelope.
The Tokyo Bottler offered a total of 10,000 Radios in a series of 8 weekly lotteries. This flyer does not include an offer to purchase a radio.
The Sanyo Bottler offered a total of 2,000 Radios in a series of 8 weekly lotteries. This flyer includes an offer to purchase a radio for 4,500 Yen plus 5 bottle cap liners.
The Kita Kyushu Bottler offered a total of 1,600 Radios and the Michinoku bottler offered a total of 2,000 Radios. I don’t yet have data for the rest of the bottlers.
Posters
There is a lot of wonderful advertising material from this campaign, including some fantastic posters.
The so-called “Blowdry Luke” poster is infamous for its depiction of Luke Skywalker with feathered hair. This version of the poster, from my collection, is from the Kinki bottler. It is a Japanese B2 size poster with approximate dimensions of 20”x29”. The instant-winner prize caps for the T-shirt and the Free Bottle are featured in the lower left corner, with the bottler-specific details of the R2-D2 AM Radio lottery in the lower right corner.
These posters were customized to match the details of the campaign specific to each bottler. This poster is from the Kita Kyushu bottler. Notice that it features Yen instant-winner prize caps at lower left. In addition to the Kinki and Kita Kyushu bottlers, there are alternate versions of this poster from the Tokyo, Sanyo, and Michinoku bottlers, and possibly others.
This larger poster is Japanese B1 size with approximate dimensions of 29”x41”, The artwork is signed Shimaoka and it depicts a space battle collage over a large starfield.
Conclusion
The Japanese Coca-Cola promotion of 1978 is fun to collect, with opportunities to collect at various levels of intensity. The bottle caps remain available and are a relatively affordable early collectible. I plan to update the matrixes included in this post in the future, when I reach a critical mass of updated information.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Martin Thurn for his patient translating assistance over a number of years. Thanks to Toru Komuro for information about the pink ring caps from the Kinki bottler and other sharing of information. Thanks to Pete Vilmur who co-authored a seminal article on this topic for starwars.com back in 2008.
Notes
[1] Information about the 1979 Red Summer promotion is taken from this poster from the Kinki bottler:
[2] This information is taken from a promotional booklet called Chapter 5 Refreshment: Japan’s Coca Cola Industry. The map and available product list are extracted from the same publication, with translations added to the map. Additional information is taken from the book Coca-Cola (Japan) Company, Limited: The First Thirty Years.
[3] This information and other historical information in this post is taken from the book Coca-Cola (Japan) Company, Limited: The First Thirty Years.
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