The Archive at 30: Todd Chamberlain

Ron writes:

 In his write-up, Archive editor Todd Chamberlain highlights what may be the most important aspect of collecting, and of the SWCA: the building and maintenance of friendships. I'm happy to say that I became friends with Todd during the time he was living in SoCal, which he describes in his piece as the period when he was first making friends through the internet. Gus Lopez recommend that I reach out to him, and I think I bought a pog from him. Or a lenticular trading card? Something like that. I'm happy to say he remains a close friend to this day. 

---

Todd writes:

The Star Wars Collectors Archive is a great information resource, but for me the first things that come to mind are the relationships it represents. I first met Gus Lopez at a toy show in Portland, Oregon, back in May 1993. I was set up as a seller, and he bought an assortment of loose action figure vehicle and playset parts. He asked some thoughtful questions about the process of buying collections, and the interaction also stood out since he paid with a check. That was fine with me, but it also provided a name. 

 

That summer, I set up at a Seattle toy show and met him again. We struck up a longer conversation this time, and at the end of the show I went out to dinner with him, Pam Green, and Richard Glass. I had attended toy shows regularly since the mid-'80s, and while I met people through that, our interactions were always limited to the show. This was the first time I’d actually had an extended conversation with other collectors in another setting, and it was so energizing!

 

In practical terms, the internet didn’t exist for me yet. I had a vague sense there were ways to communicate through computers, and a few college friends had CompuServe or Prodigy accounts, but the implications for collecting simply didn’t occur to me. I had a network of people I bought from locally, developed through collectible shows, and I posted ads in the Oregonian newspaper. 

 

In early 1994, I moved to Hermiston, a small town in Eastern Oregon. All my old haunts and friends were now three hours away. This was the era of telephone communications for me, and Gus was one of the main people I talked to about Star Wars. My long distance bill was huge -- often $200 or more a month. But it was exciting to finally have other people I could talk to about something that had been an important, but private, part of my life for so long. I also had a place to stay in Seattle over toy show weekends. Gus and I would stay up until 3:00 AM talking, and then get up at 6:00 AM to head out for the show.

 

At some point, Gus told me about a new technology (the World Wide Web, as we know it now) that enabled people to present information on a network that was accessible worldwide. Gus talked about building a resource for Star Wars collecting, but this was all abstract for me, and it really didn’t occur to me that it was something I could access myself. Having seen a Clark’s Star Wars shoe display at my mom’s house, Gus asked if I could provide a photo of it to publish on his site. So I sent him a physical photo of it that he posted, even though I didn’t have a way to see it. It's still on the site at 

http://theswca.com/images-store/clarks-display.html. [The updated entry, with better photo, can be accessed here. -- Ed.]

 

By the time I started grad school in fall 1995, I had still never been online, but by then I had e-mail and internet access, as well as access to the Star Wars Collectors Archive, and that opened up a whole new world of information and connected me to dozens of people who had made contributions to the site. Since I now had e-mail, I could write to people globally who shared similar interests, trading with them to get items I couldn’t access before. I still talked to people on the phone a lot, but the Archive provided a hub for building those connections. When I moved to Southern California for graduate school, I was able to connect with collectors who met through internet newsgroups and provided the early entries that made up the SWCA. It was a ready-made group of friends with a shared passion.

 

Many of the relationships from that time form the core of friendships I have today. I have traveled across the United States, Mexico, and the United Kingdom to meet up for collecting events, but also attended weddings and shared about our lives. There are multiple factors that contribute to longevity in the hobby, but having people to share that passion with is critical, and it’s one of the things the SWCA enables.

The Archive at 30: Michael Lonergan

Michael writes:

 "IT'S THE 'Chive Cast" [insert jingle]...

 It was Skye and Steve's podcast, which started February 2010, that brought me to the Archive and all it had to offer. Like a lot of us "old timers," I found the Rebelscum forums in the early 2000s, and that was how I interacted for buying, selling and discussing the hobby. When the guys started up the podcast, I was there from the first episode (on my iPod no less). I couldn't believe there was a podcast (or "audio magazine") on my hobby. Based here in Brisbane (BrisBANE) Australia, I didn’t have access to large collector groups or meet ups, so collecting was very much an online pursuit for me. I got involved (in a small way) when I one day sent Steve a few examples of past Greedo sales he could use for the next month’s ‘Chive Cast MarketWatch. I hadn’t messaged or interacted with Skye or Steve before, and I wasn’t well known on the forums. Steve, always the gentleman, replied and then I got involved on a monthly basis. I even created a blog at some point and then joined up with Pete Fitzke as co-contributors (Pete’s articles are worth a read -- they contain some great interviews as well as overviews of auctions).

I felt honoured when I was invited to be part of the Archive’s change 10 years ago and contribute the monthly MarketWatch segments (has Ron listened to or read one as yet??). I’m sure I’m a low-end contributor in terms of volume (though I probably do make a few readers cry when they look at examples on the MarketWatch blog with ESB proof cards selling for a few hundred dollars).

 

Skye established the podcast with a real attempt to engage the community, even having a phone line you could call to leave feedback (the Wampa Line) at one point in time (it really is that old!!!). He encouraged people to reach out, which I eventually did. It was great to make the connection and add content for the podcast and make a few appearances on the show (I even taught Skye the phrase "my day has gone to custard" when I had to shuffle my time for recording).

 

I’d like to say thanks to Gus, Ron, Chris and everyone who contributed to the Archive over the years. It is a great resource and very much holds up today. The various ways to engage with the Archive, including the podcast, and then later on the blog, have kept it relevant (or in the 20th Century as Skye puts it). People make this hobby and I’m grateful that I found my way into that group in a small way.

 

-- Brisbane BrisBANE Mike

 

The Archive at 30: James Gallo

Ron writes:

 James Gallo has been an Archive editor since, I believe, the early '00s. His reflection on how the site has impacted his life highlights how collecting is ultimately about the people you meet and make friends with. It's not just about the stuff. 

(Okay...sometimes it really is just about the stuff. But friends are important too.)

---

James writes:

As I look back on the Star Wars Collectors Archive, I remember a time when information was much harder to come by and there were only two major sites to visit when talking about vintage Star Wars collecting. If you wanted to, you could spend hours paging through the Archive like you would page through a good book. You would see things you never knew existed and learn new facts about the production process of these wonderful toys. When you thought you were done, there would be a new entry by one of the editors. It was certainly a place I went to on a regular basis, and I was always excited to see the updates. At one point I was contacted by one of those editors about my Lili Ledy set of boxed 12-inch dolls. I was not aware of how rare and significant these pieces were; I acquired them by managing to be in the right place at the right time. Little did I know how much they would change my life, and that first contact with Todd Chamberlain would develop into a lifelong friendship with not only him but the other editors as well. In the years that followed, I met and talked with many of the other editors, several of whom lived near me. As I grew with the Archive, I ended up becoming part of it, first by adding pictures and content, and then eventually became an editor myself. These connections have resulted in my being involved in the Collecting Track at several Star Wars Celebrations, visiting numerous countries, and getting to know people from all over the world. I can honestly say that without the Archive, my life, friends and collection would be extremely different. I will always be grateful to that small first group of people that started it all who were willing to welcome in the new guy. I hope that the Archive will continue to provide information and be a resource for years to come.

The Archive at 30: Yehuda Kleinman

Yehuda writes:

 There were a few rough years.

Surrounded by plenty of hip geeks in New York City, I was hard pressed to find anyone who was interested in anything other than comic books or Dungeons & Dragons. 

It was around 1990 and Star Wars was dead. Deader than dead. The only active part of the franchise on the planet I could remember was the Star Tours ride at the Disney parks. 

I had already scavenged my childhood friends' discarded collections of Kenner toys and I had been spending most of my weekends scanning the Chelsea Flea in Manhattan looking for Kenner action figures I hadn’t already found. But I was a man alone on an island even though I was surrounded by millions of people. 

There were two pivotal events that occurred during my collecting journey that for so many of us marked the true rebirth of this hobby after the vintage years. 

It was around 1992 and I was perusing the hobby and collectibles section at Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side when I spotted an oddly proportioned book that was somewhat small in stature. Its black-and-gold cover displayed an artist's rendering of the Kenner Darth Vader collectors case. The title was Star Wars from Concept to Screen to Collectible. It was by Stephen Sansweet. 

Turning the pages was something of a redemption. Each page of information were peppered with jaw-dropping images of the memorabilia I loved. Star Wars collectibles were being elevated to the stature which they deserved.

I was also introduced to the toy production process and realized that many prototypes still existed for the Kenner line of toys. I also knew at some point I wanted to meet this Sansweet guy!

A few years later while I was in medical school, the internet became a thing. At times I find it hard to truly recall what life was like without it. But I do remember what it was like to be exposed to it for the first time. It was immersive, and although quite clunky compared to today’s technology, it was already populated with millions of nerds ready to have fun. 

And one day there it was, just like Sansweet’s book. Surfing the interwebs I stumbled upon a site called toysrgus.com (the old domain name of the Archive).

Created by Gus Lopez, the site was a collaborative effort of friends researching and cataloging every aspect of the hobby. 

I knew I had found my people.

Reading the special features and later discovering the endless ever-growing database took my collecting interest well out of the Kenner comfort zone and deep into the esoteric.

My dear friend Ron Salvatore was gently unrelenting in his suggestion that I should write for the Archive as one of its bloggers, and I thank him immensely for it. Contributing to the hobby has undoubtedly been one of my greatest pleasures. 

I am so looking forward to the next iteration of the Archive as our hobby enters its next chapter. And I am forever grateful to be a part of it.

The Archive at 30: Tommy Garvey

Tommy writes:

 I’m not entirely sure how to go about this, as, to me, this is a topic worthy of its own Netflix series and not a hastily written article from a minor player in the drama. So I’ll simply discuss the Star Wars Collectors Archive in regards to my favorite topic: me.

Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas there was an age undreamed of. When the earth was young and monstrous beasts yet roamed its arid hills, searching for deals on pop culture collectibles. And it was in that primordial soup of gods and monsters, sometime in 1994 or 1995, that I first discovered the SWCA. Back in those days the web was new and America was just learning the horrors of hyperlinks, thanks to Sandra Bullock’s documentary The Net. And the SWCA was birthed into the world, like the protagonist of its own Hero’s Journey tale.

(Cue Goodfellas flashback, complete with period music and a nostalgic camera filter. The part of 12-year-old Tommy will be played by Elijah Wood, circa TheGood Son, but in nerd glasses.)

As far back as I can remember, I’ve been a collector. At that time I had only been collecting Star Wars for a year or two, having recently gone to a flea market and found a bootleg VHS copy of the Trilogy, taped off of HBO onto three different cassettes. (Oh, we were class in the '90s, let me tell you. And, to me, you haven’t really watched ANH unless it was followed immediately by a blurry taped-off-TV version of D.C. Cab recorded over the end credits.) As it turned out, the next weekend there was, of all things, a Beatles convention in town, and my cousin dragged me along with her to check it out -- and the place was packed with vintage Star Wars, for some reason. And I was hooked. (On SW collecting, not the Beatles. The Beatles are overrated, and I blame them for my habit of humming "Love Me Do" whenever I so much as think of the ESB Dagobah playset, because at that convention 29 years ago, I was talking with the dealer about the Dagobah set he had, and the song was apparently the only one the Beatles tribute band at the event knew, as they played it several times in a row while I was shopping, forever associating the playset with the song in my head.)

Where was I before I got distracted by that pointless memory and an unnecessarily long run-on sentence? Oh, yeah...

Sometime later, I was exploring that new internet thing that everyone was talking about (it’s a fad, it’ll never last), pushing Netscape Navigator to its limits (so much better than Prodigy, let me tell you). Back in the '90s, if you searched Star Wars toys online, you got very few hits. There were some conversations on Usenet (a topic for another day), and... that’s about it. Maybe some Action Masters things? Star Tours souvenirs? Micro Machines? Literally, aside from the collecting newsgroups, there wasn’t much else to see. This was the Dark Times, and Star Wars was at its lowest point... well, before Rian Johnson arrived, anyway. IIRC, at the time I was looking at... I want to say custom toys, for some reason? I don’t collect or make those and never have, but for some reason that’s what I was looking at. 

And that’s how I found the SWCA.

Now, back in the days when “social media” meant an overly gregarious reporter and we all rode dinosaurs to school, the SWCA looked different. It still had all those little frames and link boxes leading to each individual category of collectible. And given that my connection speed at the time was somewhere around the speed of ancient Persian scribes recording it all in cuneiform onto clay tablets, that meant it took a long time to load. And if you wanted to visit a site, it was best to click the link and then go see a movie or something, as it would take at least that long to fully load a single image -- which had the resolution of a Polaroid as seen through wax paper. Still, somehow, I’d found the customs section. So I checked that out for a while, and then continued my search for other things on Netscape Navigator’s then revolutionary “search” feature. (Seriously, the internet used to be so small yet baffling that you could go to the grocery store and buy phonebook-like directories filled with web addresses to random sites, because everything was basically the dark web at the time, and it all had “.edu” address suffix. If you were overcome with the sudden desire for a Cheech & Chong fan page, you needed that specific address. And, yes, that was printed in the phonebook of web addresses I had, although there was only one Star Wars fan page listed and the site was “forbidden” if you actually typed the address into your browser. At the time that warning made me think the cops would show up at any moment to arrest me for visiting the site and my parents and grandparents would weep as I was dragged from my home by the internet police.)   

Anyway, I had just read Steve Sansweet’s From Concept to Screen to Collectible. (If you haven’t read that yet, go do it right now! No, I’m serious, you need to read it. The rest of us will wait right here for you to finish and then we’ll continue the article. Okay, you back now? Told you it was amazing, right?  Now we can go on since you’ve finally done the required reading.) And I was like, “Hey... let’s look for some prototypes online.” I was previously aware of prototypes thanks to some unproduced figures from Toy Biz’s X-Men line I knew about, so I was interested in the topic. And lo and behold... the SWCA also had those. (Star Wars prototypes, not Toy Biz, obviously. Although it’d be cool if they did have those, and technically, both franchises do belong to Disney now.) In fact, the SWCA had images of prototypes which were mentioned in From Concept to Screen to Collectible, but not shown. And my mind was blown. Like, to the point I made this the topic of conversation with everyone I knew, despite the fact that no one cared. (This is a common habit with me. See: this article.) I spent that entire night looking through the listings in the preproduction sections, absorbing it all. 

I had found where my collecting journey was headed. And my life was changed as a result.

Since this was a new technology (to me, at least) I did the only logical thing: I printed out most of the site on a canon printer -- in color; no more B&W dot matrix printers for me, thanks, we’re in 1995 and this is the future -- and happily organized it all into binders. And I studied that multivolume tome religiously. I added new pages to my files as the site was updated, and after each, I carefully catalogued any of those “email” things that people were using (what a time to be alive, right?) which related to the pieces. I made the site my computer’s homepage (despite the fact it was technically my parent’s computer, but whatever). I started to recognize the names of the SWCA’s editors in the newsgroups in which I was lurking. And I spent a few years watching quietly from the shadows as the site and hobby grew bigger than I could have imagined. I wasn't stalking; it was completely innocent -- somewhere between Kathy Bates in Misery and that reporter on The Incredible Hulk who collected stories about the Hulk and followed him around the country. Soon, when you searched “Star Wars toys” online, the new Hasbro toys started to crowd the results, and the SWCA was one of the first places I can remember seeing images of some of those new figures as well. [I'm pretty sure we were the first site to have them. -- Ed.]

In 2000, the SWCA began the Collector Connection, a forum for collectors. So, I started posting there, and it was the home for the hobby's discussion for the briefest of moments... before everyone went back to the newsgroups. [We didn't have the money to pay for pro forum software, and the free service we were using became swamped with ads, so we left it for dead. -- Ed.] There was also a chat room on the site, and most nights you could go in there and chat with the same dozen or so collectors, complaining about the prequels, the latest scammer in the hobby, and how the upcoming Lord of the Rings films were likely to be terrible. I spent so much time in there that friends in the real world noticed that both my typing speed and ability to quickly think up sarcastic quips and pointless pop culture references increased exponentially. And then there was that time the site got shutdown by Toys 'R' Us because the SWCA’s address was toysrgus.com, and TRU thought that infringed on their copyright. That was quite the event, although as it turned out... we’re still here and they aren’t. Just sayin’.

Then a few years after that, I was named an editor of the site. Which to me is about the biggest honor you can receive in this hobby. And I genuinely mean that, whether or not I personally was worthy of it. [He was. -- Ed.]

So, thank you, SWCA, for helping to make me the collector I am today... and for teaching me how to use FTP. 

Seriously, I got added to the staff here, and was clicking around in the site's source files, and I wrote John Alvarez an email, and I was like, “I don’t get it, I keep clicking on stuff and nothing seems to happen? Am I supposed to like... I don’t know, try to change things or delete them there and then re-upload a new version?” And two seconds later I got a phone call from John, and without even saying hello, he was like, “Whatever you’re doing right now, STOP!  For the love of God, DON’T CLICK OR DELETE ANYTHING!  Why are you clicking things in our files if you don’t know what will happen!?! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU!?!" (string of expletives deleted). 

But you know what? I learned. Mostly I learned to fear FTP. And John’s phone calls. 

But I learned. 

I feel like, through the years, the SWCA has tried to represent the best in this hobby: its ethics, its awesome contributors, and its focus on knowledge. It has provided me hundreds of free hours of entertainment. It was basically a college-level course which taught me how to collect what I wanted to collect and showed me dozens of other collecting avenues I could choose to pursue. Like a virtual museum, it showed me pieces I’d otherwise never get the opportunity to see. It introduced me to hundreds of other collectors around the world, many of whom I’m lucky enough to count as great friends (and honorary family members) to this day. To put it bluntly: this site changed my life. 

The SWCA is, quite simply, the best thing I ever found on Netscape Navigator. And the hour it took me to load the page in 1995 was well worth it.

So here’s to thirty years, SWCA! And to all the years to come.

The Archive at 30: Ron Salvatore

Ron writes:

 I realized a few months back that 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of Gus Lopez's launching of the Star Wars Collectors Archive.

Thirty years is a long time.

In internet years, that’s nearly two centuries, which is like the average age of Congress.

To give this some context, a Wikipedia entry lists existing sites that were founded prior to 1995. Although the SWCA isn’t included (seriously, wtf?), it mentions that only 2,738 websites existed as of the middle of 1994.

My (probably inaccurate) memory is that at least a third of those 2,738 were devoted to Star Wars. Of that third, at least 70% featured a starfield background. 100% of the 70% had one of those little "under construction" gifs somewhere in the lower third of the home page (which never went away, because the site was never not under construction).

Seriously, though, Star Wars was big on the early internet. 

As SWCA co-editor Steve Danley recently discovered, there was even a 1997 CNN segment about it. And it showed the main page of the SWCA!

Our logo really hasn't changed since then.

The SWCA logo and public shootings, two things that will likely be with us forever!

As far as I know, the SWCA was the first website devoted to Star Wars collectibles. 

I mean, the whole idea was pretty novel -- an entire internet thing devoted, not just to Star Wars, but to commercial crap connected to Star Wars.

How esoteric, how obscure, how nerdy.

Remember, this was before most of us had fully grokked the internet's capacity to monumentalize triviality. 

Now, of course, we're awash in memes and TikToks and other "viral" internet media. So much so that it's hard to deny that triviality is right at the center of the culture. Indeed, sometimes it seems that triviality is the only thing that's really significant. But in 1994 devoting server space to photos of intergalactic tchotchkes was a little hard to wrap your mind around. Who would want to view that?

Shoot, at that time most didn't even understand what the World Wide Web was. I know I didn't. 

As I'm sure I've mentioned elsewhere, when I first learned of the site, probably via rec.arts.sf.starwars (that's Gus' original announcement that you see above), I couldn't figure out what it was. To me, the internet was textual -- a network of discussion groups and bulletin boards. A friend explained to me that you needed something called a "browser" to view it. And when I looked into that, I realized my computer wasn't powerful enough to run the leading browser program (I suppose it was Mosaic).

That was pretty disappointing. I worried I'd never get to see the Star Wars Collectors Archive -- whatever that was.

But come 1997 I was working on the site. I can't quite remember how that happened. I think Gus or Chris Georgoulias (or both Gus and Chris together), whom I knew through the collecting newsgroups, asked me to help out with entries. At that point in time, we were the only ones working on it, though I believe John Wooten came on board soon after that.

Working on the site entailed learning a lot about arcane things like HTML, FTP, and scanners.

Above you see the HTML book I bought at Waldenbooks to master the basics. As the cover reveals, it dates from a time when tables and Netscape were considered the "latest." 

Gulp.

We coded everything by hand, by typing HTML into a text document, then uploading it to Gus' server. Believe it or not, the site still operates like that to a large extent, though it was made substantially easier years later when Chris Nichols moved us to a database format (thanks, Chris).

We always had an audience, especially among collectors on the old Usenet newsgroups and their successors, internet forums. You'd do an update, and (usually) get immediate feedback. 

And it had an impact outside of the internet as well: I'd go to shows and conventions, and people would mention things they saw on the Archive. Some of them didn't even have internet access: They'd heard about the site, then gone to an internet cafe or a library just so they could view it. And I knew they weren't bullsh*tting me because they'd mention specific things they'd seen -- often with looks of amazement on their faces, because prior to that they didn't know they existed. 

You have to remember that, back then, there was no way to view photos of rare collectibles outside of books and magazines. Social media hadn't been invented. If you wanted to share something rare in your collection, you didn't have many DIY options outside of the Archive. So people were often very eager to have their items showcased.

I still have piles of printed photographs (remember those?) that collectors sent to me, in the hope that their treasures would be featured on the nascent World Wide Web. 

Above you see a few of them.

Now, of course, smartphones and social media have made the acts of image capturing and publication nearly simultaneous, and the idea of mailing a physical photograph to someone so they can put it on the internet seems as absurd as, I dunno, buying a cow so you can have milk with your morning coffee.

I remember when I first heard of digital cameras. "Whoa," I thought, "you mean no more scanners? It's digital right from the get-go?" These days, you don't have to worry about file transfers or coding either. You just click a button and there it is on Facebook. 

But the Archive is a product of a different era, and despite all that we've added to it -- the podcast, the blog, the social media outposts -- it'll probably always remain a product of Web 1.0. To a large extent, I'm a product of Web 1.0, and I suspect my colleagues are as well. Zoomers are never gonna mistake us for cutting edge. Not even if we all got those weird poodle haircuts.

So what has the SWCA accomplished over the years?

Well, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that, for a while there at least, it was ground zero for information on vintage Star Wars collecting. It was the most influential voice out there. And, unquestionably, this influence was felt most profoundly in the realm of prototype collecting. 

Consider this: At one point in the late '90s, if you did a Yahoo search for "prototype," the Archive was the second or third hit. 

I'm talking about "prototype" as a word, now, without a connection to toys or Star Wars. You searched for prototypes because you were trying to get a manufacturing project off the ground, and you got a site run by toy nerds. 

We all got a big kick out of that.

In the late '90s and early '00s, so many novel collectibles were being hauled out of Cincinnati, and so much learned about the developmental process behind the Kenner toys, that the Archive doubled as a record of discoveries in the realm of prototype Star Wars material. We were finding all this cool stuff, and sharing it with collectors in real time. As we learned about it, so did they. To this day, I think the shrewdness of Star Wars collectors, particularly concerning the toy development process, remains somewhat unique. And that's partly down to the influence of the Archive.

Eventually it slowed down. Everything eventually slows down. But over the last 15 years the site has kept chugging along at a semi-regular pace, its influence continuing to be felt in the hobby. The 'Chive Cast, the brainchild of Skye Paine and Steve Danley, was the first podcast focused on vintage Star Wars collectibles, and our blog has featured some of the best writing on the hobby ever published. What's more, I feel like the Collecting Track at Star Wars Celebration, which Gus has done a terrific job of spearheading, is an outgrowth of the culture fostered by the Archive. 

Jeez, lots of things are outgrowths of that culture. It's really something the folks who've contributed to it can be proud of. 

On a more personal note, I've been publishing my writing on the web for many years now, and one of the things I've learned is that (somewhat ironically) internet content has a permanence that printed content does not. I've written magazine articles, but no one talks about those, because no one reads the magazines once they're off the newsstands and either filed away or thrown out. But you can still find things I wrote in 1997 via a simple Google search. And people are finding them all the time. I know because I see them referenced pretty regularly.

Of course, internet content isn't permanent if it doesn't remain on the internet. Will the site be around 30 years from now? Probably not. But then a bunch of us will be dead anyway. Is there life after death? Is there content after internet?

Thanks to Gus for having the vision and the fortitude to stick with it. And thanks to all of the readers and contributors for the memories. Here's to the experiences that remain ahead of us!

The Archive at 30: Amy Sjoberg

Amy writes:

 A Little On 1994, the SWCA, and Fandom

It is amazing what a lasting impact the year 1994 has had on the timeline of Star Wars fandom. It marked the end of the Dark Times, an era that lasted roughly 10 years from 1984-1994 with very little in the way of new projects or products. While 1994 did see the start of some new items like books, comics, audio books and trading cards, it soon made way for an onslaught in the years to follow. Looking back we really have had a wealth of new collectibles every single year since 1994.

What 1994 did have going for it was a little thing called the internet. Then, a vast rolling tundra with new users joining every day to stake out their own points of interest online. For the first generation of Star Wars fans that grew up seeing the original releases in the theater, the internet became a place to connect. There they realized that there were many others out there that still loved Star Wars as much as they did despite having no new films on the horizon. Friendships were forged online, information was shared and places like the Star Wars Collecting Archive (SWCA) were born. For many, the SWCA became a fountain of information that evolved as fans shared more of their collecting knowledge and experience.

These early contributors to the SWCA went on to create their own gatherings, write books, and panels for future events like Star Wars Celebration. 

 

Some of us had a seat just behind the front row of the SWCA in 1994, a generation of Star Wars fans I’ll term as 1.5. Our older siblings grew up seeing the movies in the theater. We didn’t collect the toys in the '80s because we were a little too young. Our time came in 1995 when VHS tapes of the Trilogy were re-released “for the last time” and Kenner brought back Power of the Force action figures. Who says teenagers can’t collect action figures?!

As a member of Star Wars generation 1.5, I knew the internet existed in 1994 but didn’t really use it till 1999 and didn’t collect till 1995. Up until that time, Netscape was just a thing I noticed classmates used at lunchtime in the high school library. That changed when I got to college and started looking for my own community. I stumbled across Toys R Gus probably after searching for "Seattle SARLACC." I had heard rumblings of a Seattle based collecting club of Star Wars collectors and wanted to join. I recall the landing page looking like this. 

But within a few clicks I landed at the SWCA. After reading my fair share of Star Wars Insider magazines and living by the collector articles, I was down the rabbit hole. The SWCA was a massive deep dive into what I felt must have been every collectible ever! So my joining SARLACC was delayed for a bit as I was distracted by all the things that could be learned over at the Archive.

Slight detour here as SARLACC is also celebrating its 30th anniversary this year as one of the oldest Star Wars collecting clubs. The search for SARLACC and getting to join proved elusive to me but the payoff of joining was worth the wait. While SARLACC was what had started my search for Star Wars community online, the SWCA is what kept me returning week after week to see what new items were shared.

I am extremely thankful that the SWCA came along when it did. I would further like to express my thanks to Gus Lopez who not only welcomed me at my first SARLACC meeting (in August 2006) but also invited me to volunteer at the Star Wars Celebration Collecting Track (2007-onwards) and to be a guest editor at the Archive Blog (2014). Thank you Gus for welcoming me to this community and providing me the opportunity to have a seat at the collecting table. Here I have found friendships with people that I consider extended family. I would like to add in here that Gus must have been rather busy in 1994 as he was finishing up graduate degrees while also starting the SWCA and helping found SARLACC. Nothing like having no time on ones hands to create some of the most lasting impacts to the history of Star Wars collecting fandom!

Happy 30th SWCA (and SARLACC) may this be a year of celebrating our past as we look forward to the future.

The Archive at 30: Michael Mensinger

Ron writes:

 I first met Michael Mensinger at a toy show in the late '90s. My friend with whom I'd set up that day and I ended up chatting with him for what seemed like hours, as we likely disregarded paying customers to further discuss rare store displays, prototypes, or whatever it was that was occupying our thoughts. Though I can't say for sure, it's a good bet that the Star Wars Collectors Archive was one of the topics of conversation. As Mike mentions below, he joined the site as an editor several years later, and he's been here ever since, contributing lots of well-researched content and necessary revisions. He's also remained my good friend. Come to think of it, so has the person with whom I set up at the toy show on that fateful day: a guy named Todd Chamberlain, another editor of the site!

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Michael writes:

 Collecting books, magazines and Toy Shop represented mediums by which I digested vintage Star Wars information and viewed pictures during my initial collecting endeavors. Yet during my early college years, a new and unexplored frontier of information, the World Wide Web, presented itself. I quickly realized a new world of online collecting content, albeit somewhat limited compared to today’s standards, was literally at my fingertips once I learned to surf around and discover it! The interwebs lead me to an amazing website: the Star Wars Collectors Archive. I recall printing entry pages to read and save in a folder in the event I couldn’t locate the site again. A bookmark was something to place in a book as opposed to saving one’s place on the web to a novice web surfer like myself, after all, and my web access was limited to University of Delaware computer labs.

The Archive’s in-depth content, crafted by Gus Lopez, Ron Salvatore, Chris Georgoulias, and John Wooten helped expand my knowledge on Star Wars prototypes and the toy production process, which in turn greatly guided my path down this collecting avenue. Not only that, but I developed lasting friendships with the site’s staff and graciously accepted an offer to join the Archive as an editor in February 2003. I recall my excitement when Ron asked me to submit images of a few pieces from my collection for site entries, so the idea of writing entry descriptions and fielding submissions from fellow collectors couldn’t have been more appealing. Additionally, I’d be giving back to the hobby that brought me so much joy and meaningful friendships.

I’m pleased to have authored over 1,000 entries on the site over the past 21 years and spent countless hours transitioning existing entries over from .HTML files to the Archive database during that transition. I also dedicated time and effort to expanding prototype content by fielding submissions from others and adding material from my personal collection. The proof card and Micro Collection prototype sections represent two particular areas where I spent significant time and energy, both in terms of content generation and index page reorganization.

It’s been an absolute pleasure being affiliated with the Archive as an editor since 2003 and content submitter during prior years. After all this time, I still view the Archive as the absolute best resource online or in print for Star Wars collecting information and memorabilia. Cheers to the 30th, SWCA!

The Archive at 30: Bill Cable

Ron writes:

 Bill Cable, a talented artist and the creator of CreatureCantina.com, has been a friend of the Archive, if not from its inception, then at least since the late '90s. In addition to many wonderful works of art, he is responsible for the rad 30th anniversary logo that you see at the top of this page. In his write-up, he highlights what might be considered the Archive's killer app – its ability to broaden collectors' awareness of what is out there, just waiting to be found.

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Bill writes:

My Archive collecting story begins just about when my vintage collecting began, in the spring of 1998. A few of my fellow OSWCC members encouraged me to attend the toy show at Kane County, which is where I purchased my first vintage figure. That got me hooked, but I didn't know the best way to go about it. So I followed the examples of John Wooten, Dan Flarida, and Chirs Fawcett, all of whom extolled the practice of character focus collecting. Pretty soon I had landed on the goal of collecting C-3PO on every different cardback.

Invaluable to that effort was Dan's own "Comprehensive Guide to U.S. Figure Card Backs." It helped me learn all the different cards and offer combos Kenner produced, and served as a checklist for me to keep track of the ones I'd purchased and the ones I still needed. My greatest objective was to get an example of C-3PO with every single mail-away offer; a complete catalog of every C-3PO one might ever had seen on the pegs. 

Through lots of research and networking, I learned this would not be easy. I discovered two of them certainly didn't exist. No C-3PO with a Boba Fett offer (SW20C through SW20H) or a Display Arena offer (ESB45) had ever been discovered. The ESB45, in particular, was extensively researched, as it was a key item for "premiere" carded figure collectors (people who wanted each figure in the very first packaging on which it was available). ESB45 was supposed to launch the redesigned C-3PO with Removable Limbs figure, as pictured on the backs of all ESB45 cards. But no example of one had ever been found. Finally, while it was thought likely they existed (since they were stickered at the warehouse), I couldn't find any evidence that there were any C-3POs with the Anakin offer sticker either.

I resorted to preproduction examples for the two printed offers. By a miracle I ended up getting the Boba Fett offer Cromalin proof from Tom Neiheisel, which just happens to be the only example of a Fett offer 3PO in the world. I picked up two Display Arena proofs at Celebration II at the legendary Steve Denny room sale. I was pretty content. But there was something on the Archive that vexed me... 

There was an entry for "Empire Strikes Back C-3PO" on which you can clearly see the Display Arena offer. It's a small, grainy photo, and the bubble had been removed from the card, but it clearly suggested the ESB45 C-3PO was sold at retail. In Peru. Wait... in PERU?? Yes, in Peru. A company called BASA had a contract to distribute Kenner Star Wars figures in Peru, as well as to produce an array of Star Wars-branded products (school supplies, lunch boxes, etc.). The thing is – BASA figures are unbelievably rare. Only a handful of them had ever been found. BASAs are considered perhaps the rarest of foreign figures. The C-3PO from this Archive post not only had the Display Arena offer (which wasn't supposed to exist), it also had the BASA logo sticker the company affixed to the top-left corner of Kenner figures they distributed.

For many years I would speculate online and in person how such a figure would even make it to Peru. Did Kenner have a case of rejected ESB45 figures they just shipped off? Were there any other oddball BASAs? How is it possible the only known ESB45 C-3PO was only available on the rarest foreign card? It boggles the mind... at least it boggled my mind. It also lived in the forefront of my mind. That's why, in a thread on RebelScum where it was asked for everyone to list their "holy grail," I responded with the BASA ESB45 C-3PO.

It just so happened the owner of the BASA ESB45 C-3PO that was pictured on the Archive read that thread and saw my reply. Luis Galvez reached out to me, and he told me not only did he own that BASA 3PO, he was pretty sure his childhood friend still had another. The one owned by his friend also had the bubble removed, but the BASA sticker and card were otherwise intact. Luis brokered a deal between us, which involved Luis' mother visiting Peru and exchanging my cash for his friend's cardback. It was wild. All I could do was imagine this little old lady climbing the mountains around Machu Picchu to arrive at some remote Peruvian village to get this silly Star Wars toy for me. That's probably isn't what happened, but I don't know for certain, so I choose to pretend it did.

That ESB45 cardback remains a centerpiece of my C-3PO collection, along side my Cromalin and "the Golden Grail." And it's all thanks to the Archive, whose editors understood the importance of cataloging these obscure and unusual collectibles all the way back when the World Wide Web was in its infancy.