Over the next few weeks we'll celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Star Wars Collectors Archive by sharing the tributes of those who have contributed to and been influenced by it. Who better to kick off this effort than Archive founder Gus Lopez? Obviously, Gus has been with the Archive from the beginning. He's also made quite a name for himself in the world of Star Wars fandom. If you enjoy reading his reflections on the Archive, stay with us throughout the month of August for additional content related to the 30th anniversary of the SWCA. Also, if you haven't seen Dave Quinn's previous post about the Archive's 30th Anniversary, you might want to check it out.
Gus writes:
When I started the Star Wars Collectors Archive in 1994, the original idea was just to have a place to share images between friends who were fellow collectors. We had all grown up with Star Wars as kids and were nostalgic about tracking down toys we had missed or hadn’t saved in packaging. We were the first generation that was Internet-savvy, so had a powerful advantage in building our collecting knowledge over previous generations and were able to network with collectors around the world and make discoveries most people had not widely known.
At the time that I started the Archive, there were only about 3-4 Star Wars websites on the Web, and none of them were devoted to collecting. I remember when I announced that I was creating a website that was exclusively about Star Wars collecting, people thought it was crazy to have something so narrowly focused on such an esoteric topic. Now there are hundreds, if not, thousands of excellent Star Wars collecting websites. No one knew at the time how websites would transform the world. The original vision was always about leveraging this incredible community, and it was a group effort from the start. I have always believed that the best work is also the result of collaborations from talented people with complementary skills and diverse areas of expertise, and that’s what we did from the start, building something greater than the sum of the parts. And so many people have played a large part in the Archive over the years such as Chris Georgoulias, Ron Salvatore, Duncan Jenkins, Pete Vilmur, Skye Paine, Steve Danley, John Alvarez, Yehuda Kleinman, Chris Nichols, John Wooten, Isaac Lew, James Gallo, Mike Mensinger, Todd Chamberlain, Stephane Faucourt, Tommy Garvey, Pete Fitzke, Michael Lonergan, Amy Sjoberg, Jonathan McElwain, and many others. Approximately 500 different collectors have contributed content to the Archive over the past 30 years!
Initially, since we were the only Star Wars collecting website around, we were covering everything about Star Wars collecting, including topics like custom action figures, prop replicas, loose figure guides, bootlegs, new toy releases, and even travel to Star Wars locations. As other sites developed expertise in these areas, we were happy to have them take the lead. And we doubled down on our strengths such as special features, toy prototypes (what the kids call “pre-production” these days), props, international pieces, and rare items. And believe it or not, we were even the first website in the world to share images of Kenner's new line of action figures in 1995 after their 9 year hiatus from producing Star Wars toys. We took the Archive to a new level in 2008 when we added the Archive Database seeding it with the 77,569 items from the Comprehensive Guide to Star Wars Collectibles that Duncan Jenkins and I wrote to cover every worldwide commercially available product. We’ve continued to build on this database, and retrofitted it with the extensive amount of wonderful content created for the Archive since 1994.
When we started, we never thought the Archive would have this impact on the community. We sometimes got complaints about not doing frequent enough updates, and we still get complaints about our outdated web designs, but we all have busy lives and never wanted this to be a chore and become one of those sites that needs to work 24x7 to give the latest news. We wanted to build high quality, timeless information out of a labor of love when we felt inspired. One of the things I get a kick out of is meeting people who were drawn to Star Wars collecting by the Archive. Over the years I have met so many collectors who told me that our website is what inspired them to become a Star Wars collector. The original concept was to build something by the community for the community, and I am thrilled that 30 years later, this is still the case!
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