I have lots and lots of books in my Star Wars collection, both fiction and non-fiction for young and adult readers alike. Star Wars: The Mystery of the Rebellious Robot was published by Random House in 1979. I remember checking his book out from our school’s library. This copy also came from a school library, although not my school. Unsurprisingly the story begins with Han Solo piloting the Millennium Falcon, Chewbacca and R2-D2 playing Planetary Poker, and C-3P0 running around like a maniac. First it’s R2-D2 that begins acting rebellious, although soon many of the droids, robots and machines down… (read more)

Happy Star Wars Day, everyone — May the Fourth Be With You! I’m pretty sure I stated that my 1977 Bradley Watch was the first Star Wars thing I ever owned. If it was, this was a close second. The Star Wars Storybook was a Scholastic Book that I purchased through my school’s book club when I was in kindergarten. The school didn’t traditionally bring the Scholastic handouts to kindergartners because most of them couldn’t read, but I could, and someone must have provided me with one. On the first page, readers are treated to a “who’s who” of the… (read more)

During the late 70s, there was no such thing as “rarity” when it came to Kenner action figures on the shelves. By 1978, Kenner was manufacturing 3 3/4″ action figures just as quickly as they could. If Walmart didn’t have the figure you were looking for, chances were Service Merchandise, TG&Y, or some other local retailer did. Despite that, there were rarities, or at least figures that not everybody had. Most of these were figures that came bundled with playsets. The Blue Snaggletooth (included in the early Cantina playset) is the most well-known early rarity, but another one that few… (read more)

What better way to publicly pledge your allegiance to the Empire as a kid in the 1980s than by carrying a Star Wars brand lunchbox to and from school every day? Sure, other kids might have Star Wars toys at home, but with a Star Wars lunchbox, you could represent Star Wars all day! The lunchbox you see above is the one I carried to school for a couple of years in the early 1980s. The picture shows our four heroes (Chewbacca, Han Solo, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker) standing on Hoth with their guns drawn and pointed toward the… (read more)

This is approximately 1/4th of my Star Wars collection. Although my collection is pretty big, some of my favorite pieces are actually quite small, like this one: In 1998, having just moved back to Oklahoma from Spokane, I threw a big birthday party — a really big birthday party, with kegs of beer and gobs of food and dozens and dozens of people. One of the party attendees walked through my front door, came right up to me, and handed me this tiny Yoda. “I brought you this Yoda.” “Where did it come from?” “I stole it from Walmart.” And… (read more)