I've known John Alvarez since he bought several things from me, all of which were (allegedly) stolen by the Post Office, as he colorfully recounts in the below reminiscence. One of my oldest friends in the hobby, John is responsible for some of the Archive's most impactful features, including a guide to Polish bootleg action figures, which was groundbreaking at the time it was published. In his piece, John (rightfully, I think) focuses not on rare collectibles, but on the relationships he made through the Archive, as well the love of learning the site helped develop in him.
John writes:
The Archive at 30, and Me…at 53
I have been putting this on the back burner for the last few weeks as I wasn’t sure how I wanted to approach this, and, honestly, I am still making this up as I type. I am pretty sure there will be several revisions before I hit send.
So, where to begin?
I guess we should start with why I found the Archive to begin with. As most of us, my interest began with 1977 viewings of Star Wars. I became obsessed, to say the least. I loved the movies but I especially loved the toys. My family couldn’t afford it all but I had a good chunk and my best friend, Mike, had another chunk, and luckily we didn’t have a ton of duplicates. I played and played until Dungeons & Dragons and girls slowly replaced Star Wars. (No, seriously – actual girls.)
Fast forward to the mid-1990s; I was working in the local mall and for some reason popped into KB Toys. Maybe I saw a window display. Maybe I saw some toys through the entrance as I walked by. It is hard to recall the why, but I was in the store browsing Star Wars action figures. I saw names like Power of the Force (POTF2) and something called Shadows of the Empire. As an aside, I hadn’t ever seen the original POTF line so this was my first time seeing that name for a toy line. I knew something was going on. Why were action figures coming back for the first time in 12 years (at least to me since I hadn’t known about POTF)? The only Star Wars on my radar in many years, and at that time it was half of my life earlier, was when my ex-girlfriend from college bought me the Trilogy VHS set for Christmas one year. I was ecstatic, as I hadn’t seen any of the movies outside of TV in a very long time. So, why now?
Shortly after, the Special Edition Trilogy was released and the Episode I hype started. My good friend, Jay, started to pick up all the action figures and I was along for most of the toy runs. I bought him a few he was looking for as Christmas presents, and picked myself up a Tarkin. He slowly peer pressured me into buying some cool Episode I figures and we started collecting toys, making friends to get store displays, and planning capers to “Yehuda” [he means steal -- ed.] the ones that weren’t gifted to us. It was a great time in my life for Star Wars. Slowly, Jay drifted out of collecting and I got more serious. It was still the fledgling internet days but I was searching, probably using Netscape Navigator, and I found eBay and a few early websites. I remember the fake scripts and the online action figure comics (POTFToo, anybody?). I remember that I started to hear about rare variants like the many, many, Boba Fett paint-op mistakes. I started to collect Fett exclusively. Through eBay I started to meet people like Bill McBride, John Wooten, and Joey Santwan, who were also early focus collectors (I was probably one of the first few focus collectors, though a few of us fight for that title). Later, I met Jeff Koh (onlybobafett) and Chad (Twisted Sithster), other focus collectors. My interests grew and I was hunting for rarities, foreign releases, and things like bootlegs and customs, but I hadn’t really gotten into vintage yet. My interest in bootlegs stemmed from my mother being a toy dealer who purchased her wares in China Town, NYC. She had knock-off Transformers and puzzle games similar to Rubik's Cube and I had them all. It only seemed natural to look for Star Wars bootlegs. That and the customs were how I first found the Archive in my searches. A short time later, all the cool vintage bootlegs I saw on the Archive would cause my interest to increase to the point that I began to pursue them with one of my closest -- and most frustrating -- hobby friends, Joe Yglesias.
I wish I could say I was there from the beginning, but I was not. This was maybe 1998 when I first found the Archive, so it was already about 4 years in development. There was still so much to learn and add but in the early days, as today, it was the best source for the most up-to-date information. I cannot put into words the hours I spent poring over entries. A handful of names kept floating to the top. Over and over I saw these same names.
By this point the Episode I hype machine was an unstoppable juggernaut and I was buying like crazy. I was buying tons of magazines and reading articles and watching TV specials, and again I saw those same names. I saw interviews with Gus Lopez -- lots of interviews with Gus -- and some other names I had not yet known but later would. I read articles by Gus, Ron Salvatore, and Chris Georgoulias (ChrisG), and others. I saw names like CJ Fawcett, and an anonymous New York collector, who these days is affectionately known as “Fluffy." I will be completely honest with you: these guys felt like rock stars to me. I mean, I saw them on TV and published in magazines, not to mention all of the cool stuff the Archive credited them as owning. I was a tad star-struck when I finally started to talk to them.
Early message boards were the first way the community communicated. The Archive directed me to rec.arts.sf.starwars.collecting.vintage (rasscv), although the split to the vintage subgroup may not have happened when I first started reading. It may have still been rassc. Either way, there I was. I was a lurker for some time but spent my first year poring over messages going back many years. I learned and learned. Again, I saw the same names but started to slowly interact with them.
I bought some stuff from Ron, which was literally stolen by the USPS. They had to open an internal investigation. Meanwhile, I was telling Ron all of this and he thought I was insane. He seriously thought I was some whackjob conspiracy guy or something. (I mean, he probably still does but for other reasons now.) The package was found and Ron actually spoke to me again. We don’t talk much toys these days but I still visit he and his family quite often and go hiking several times a year.
ChrisG (Sparky), was a mentor in so many ways. He was also the first person to teach me about friendships in the hobby. I used to read a lot but I still bounced a ton of emails his way for help. He appreciated the research but one day he yelled at me: He told me that I could actually talk to him about himself once in a while since he was more than a Star Wars encyclopedia. That hit home. Through eBay I saw him selling some very heavy music and I was a little shocked. He has always had a very clean cut look and I was very surprised to see that he listened to underground music like punk, hardcore, and extreme types of metal. Later I found out he was also into freestyle bikes, which I was into in my teenage years. So, he was right, we did have stuff in common and became pretty close friends. He was the first person who convinced me to break those money barriers, which helped me elevate my collection. He taught me that a lot of it was “fake money.” You buy something, sell it for a profit, and buy the more expensive thing you want. There are thresholds that are difficult to cross, and some of my early crossings made me sick to my stomach, but he was right. He was also the person who pushed for me to be made an Archive editor. I was part of the first wave of new editors that extended beyond Gus, ChrisG, Ron, Wooten, and Nichols in the background keeping the hamster on the wheel. I was still new compared to many, and had a hard time getting respect from some in the commuity because of my newness but Chris saw the hard work I was putting in. I was on rasscv and the Archive message board fielding questions from guys who had been around years before me because I put in the time to learn. Chris and I don’t talk as much as we used to but adulting can be a drag. I miss the free time to travel to cons and visit houses and do all the fun stuff I could do in my 20s and 30s. Nevertheless, I still have a great time when we do get to hang out.
The Archive is and always was one of the best sources of information in the hobby, but to me it is most important because of all the people I met through it, whether on the (long defunct) Archive discussion board, rasscv, Galactic Hunter, RebelScum, and Facebook, or at events like Celebration, DragonCon, and all the club gatherings that I have traveled to and at which I have represented the Archive as a panel speaker. I have stayed in houses, visited new countries, attended weddings, and even said goodbye to those no longer with us. I stopped collecting years ago but the friends are what keep me around -- friends made with the Archive as the center of the community. As we’ve always said, “You’d be amazed what you can find there.” I found a community and friendships that have lasted me 25 years.
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