A Comlink to the Past, Episode II: The Phantom Blogpost.

It was a mere eight years ago, in the post linked here, that I pledged to write more about my childhood Star Wars collection. True to my word, here it is...

Since I already listed the toys in that previous post, I'll begin with a recent toy acquisition--the Imperial Troop Transport. I'm not really much of a collector anymore, but I found this with the original box and it was a halfway decent price. I owned it once upon a time, and I have no idea whatever became of it. I was disappointed to find that the sounds don't work, but that's about par for the vintage electronics course. No instructions, but it has the two immobilization thingies.

(Click on the photos to enlarge.)

Here are my Burger King glasses, two on the left from the original 1977 series and the others are the four Empire Strikes Back 1980 glasses. (I also have the '77 commercial in my archive of old ads, which you can read a little more about here...)

UPDATE! My wife and I visited the Poconos a few months after I posted these pics, and we hit a few antiques malls and flea markets. One of them had a huge collection of old glasses for sale, and lo and behold, there were the exact two I needed--and in perfect condition! So Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie are now where they belong, and again all is right with the world...

Here we see all the cards I collected, with a General Mills wallet in the foreground, all cards intact (although some genius made the fold-out too short, so two cards can't be displayed). Behind that to the left is a baggie with card wrappers and a bunch of extra stickers (which at some point I had displayed but, speaking of geniuses, I apparently saved the wrong pic). To the right of that are the original cards, and in the baggie is the legendary card that I call "Threepio sporting a nine iron." (The alleged 'bot boner is just a illusion, but it's pretty funny anyway.) In the box to the back left are Empire cards including ten packs or so in wrappers. To the right of that is the box lid holding various other trading cards I had: Creature Features, a few Alien and fewer E.T., and the whole series of Raiders of the Lost Ark cards.

9/30/24 UPDATE!
I recently picked up these original wrappers to go with the few I had.
Just need the yellow ESB to complete…

Some of these magazines I had back in the day, but most were acquired since...

9/30/24 UPDATE! I got this super-cool December 1977 issue of Comics Journal (#37) a few years ago.

I had all these humor mags as a lad (unfortunately, the Mad SW cover is just that--only a cover, having lost the rest ages ago) [UPDATE! Full issue added 2018!] except the Sick (?) which I found at a neat place called Land of Oohs and Oz (in Farmingdale, Long Island) a few years ago. The "Read" booklet at top left I got recently also. It was a school handout published by Xerox, with this issue coming out about a month before the movie in 1977. I haven't found mention of it anywhere online. The Dynamite mags also came to the collection later. Since this pic was taken, I've also acquired a Long Island Cablevision guide with SW on the cover, from the cable premiere in February 1983. See and read about it HERE!

We're getting into the random here... Clockwise from top left: a SW book and 45; six ESB Presto Magix (all appliances are scratched into them); a bunch of mail-away cereal premium cards, all with thumbtack holes; below those are a bunch of the large Topps cards; a letter I got from NPR (postmarked March 25, 1981) in response to my sister's inquiry about their dramatic SW radio series, with a mini-poster, copies of newspaper articles, and a card listing all their stations; and along the left, four kiddie activity books, liberally scribbled-in.

My favorite thing here, which I forgot to photograph, is the back of the NPR envelope. It bears a note in the familiar handwriting of my mom, left out for me to see when returning home from Catholic school some spring day:
"Went to A+S."

9/30/24 UPDATE! I was given this CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc) of SW a year or so ago but, since I don't have a player anymore, it went right up onto the shelf and I forgot to add it here. (I just remembered I also have original VHS copies of the two movies, I'll get those on here at some point...)

My fan club booty: newsletters (missing number one, of course), acceptance letter and membership card, and all the photos that came with. In the middle is the sticker sheet for the carrying case (not the Vader-shaped one, just a regular ol' box), with all the character names. It was just sorta stuck in there.

Posters, calendars (the '78 at the top being in particularly dire shape, having been pulled apart for display in later years), lobby cards (from the Batcave in Plainview, short-lived local comic book store of my youth), a Circus magazine Threepio centerfold, and some random newspaper pic at the bottom...

[2021 add: I just acquired an intact 1978 calendar, liberally written in (even a Red Cross blood donation pin shaped like a drop of blood stuck into one page) and one for 1979. I don't think I had the '79, somehow, because the pics don't seem familiar. The outside is scuffed, but the inside pages are pristine, may not have ever been hung...]

Finally, some poster mags at the front (I've added a few SW editions since taking this pic) and Marvel comics to the rear (I used to have tons more but sold them years ago--these were doubles), and yet another random magazine cover cut-out.

My lack of progeny (not to mention knowledge of what this stuff might be worth) could be in your favor if you want any of it--I'd rather see it go to some nerdly fanboy collector than in the bin when I bite it, so drop me a line if you're interested...

I hadda do it: