Home to the world's largest Star Wars collection
Watch Steve Sansweet unveil an exciting new addition to his collection : A near-exact static prop replica of the Wampa head puppet used for closeup shots in The Empire Strikes Back, made by licensee Regal Robot.
Hear why and how the ILM FX team made the Wampa puppet and how it was created. This amazing piece will become available February 20, 2024 from Regal Robot!
Rancho Obi-Wan tour tickets for 2023 are now available!
We are now offering tour tickets through Eventbrite to make seeing tour schedule and buying tickets more easy for everyone!
Through Eventbrite you will be able to:
– Buy tour tickets, add Memberships, and make donations
– Reschedule tour tickets or get a refund if needed
– Change the names on tour tickets
– Members will receive a discount on tour tickets
– You do not need an Eventbrite account to buy
Let’s continue our look at the colorful world of Keshigomu (rubber erasers), the popular Star Wars collectibles from Japan! If you missed out on part one you can click here to look at the Maruka Toy Company series of small erasers from 1978. For part two we are turning our attention to the Jumbo series, also by Maruka Toy Company in 1978!
Although the series is called “Jumbo”, don’t let that fool you. To paraphrase a wise Jedi Master, “Size…is relative.” Whereas the small series are about 1.5 inches high, this larger series are roughly 2.5 inches high. Another easily noticeable difference, is that the Jumbos come in individual bags with colorful headers depicting a photo of the character or vehicle for that keshi. The small keshi, you will recall, were sold in bags of 50 random pieces, or in blind bags of five. These were sold individually. An attractive display box holding these erasers would sit on the counter of small mom and pop shops, confectionary stores, or kiosks. The first series of the Jumbo line consisted of many of the same characters and vehicles that made up the smaller counterparts: R2-D2, C-3PO, Landspeeder, Millennium Falcon, X-Wing, and Y-Wing. Fans of the Empire were out of luck. Also, just like the small series, the Jumbo were made in opaque and translucent versions of each color. It is worth noting that the opaque versions are significantly more difficult to find than the clear ones. Another fun observation when looking at the Jumbo series is that the Millennium Falcon has two cockpits!
At some point after the first series, a second series was briefly released. This much rarer set is considered by most collectors to be the most difficult to find. Another six Jumbo keshi make up the second series: Darth Vader, Stormtrooper, Sandcrawler, Star Destroyer, Vader’s TIE Fighter, and R2-D2. But wait a second, I hear you saying to your computer screen, wasn’t R2-D2 in the first series? Good catch, however, the first series R2-D2 has two legs and the second series version sports three legs. If you want a major challenge, try tracking down even one of these second series Jumbo keshi.
The final area we will discuss regarding the Maruka Toy Company’s vintage keshi involves their “Magic Ruler” (or stencil) line. At the same time they released their large and small keshi, Maruka released a set of ten small plastic stencils that featured outlines of Star Wars characters and vehicles. The trick was that the outlines were separated into right and left halves so that when you traced them together the full character would appear like magic. Don’t worry, no need to burn anyone at the stake, it’s really science. Now that you have extinguished your mob torches, you are probably all asking what does that have to do with keshi? I am glad you asked. These magic ruler stencils came in several different colors but they were sold in solid black plastic bags so you couldn’t tell what character or color you were buying. Once you purchased it, you opened the bag at the counter and if you were lucky enough to get a black plastic magic ruler, the store owner also gave you one of the Jumbo keshi as a prize. There were only three black stencils in each counter display box. Collectors today occasionally find sealed boxes of the magic ruler stencils. If they were to open the box, in addition to the 36 black bagged stencils, there are also three bagged Jumbo keshi that the store owner would remove and set behind the counter to be handed out as prizes. Yet another way young Japanese students could get their insatiable fix for erasers to help them fix the countless errors they were writing. After all, as we discussed last time, that was the sole purpose of the keshi. They were certainly not toys.
For our third installment in the colorful keshi trilogy (which may or may not be longer than a trilogy depending on how verbose I feel) we will look at those erasers made by another famous Japanese company, Takara. Stay tuned!
This month’s item from the Imperial Archives features the story of a vintage Star Wars Kenner toy that never was, but this prototype of an unproduced rifle shows it was apparently considered for release in 1980.
This toy is a hardcopy, meaning it was hand-cast from a silicone mold using a two-part urethane (unlike production toys which are made from steel molds using injected plastic). It’s hand-painted, with a hand-applied photographic logo sticker, and it includes bespoke electronic components. Pulling the rear trigger activates a motor, creating a whining sound effect and lighting up a kaleidoscope contained in the gun’s sight. Squeezing the front trigger mechanically alters the kaleidoscopic view and decreases the motor’s speed, changing the pitch of the sound effect.
Before this item turned up, about two decades after it was made, Star Wars toy collectors didn’t know it existed. Kenner had never solicited the toy for sale, so it never appeared in a catalog or on a product list; there were no known photos of it, and no Kenner employee had been known to mention it. It doesn’t look much like any weapon in Star Wars or The Empire Strikes Back; the only indication that it has anything at all to do with Star Wars is the paper Empire label hand-glued to the toy.
When we bought it, the primary reason we had to believe that it was really an unproduced Star Wars toy prototype was the excellent reputation of the seller, The Earth Collectible Toy Mall in Cincinnati. As that city was the longtime home of Kenner, a stunning number of prototype toys had come to The Earth from Kenner employees over the years, so we believed that this probably was a real Star Wars toy, but we nevertheless wished we had some hard evidence.
A couple years later, Lisa was looking through an auction lot of items being sold by someone whose father had worked on the Star Wars line at Kenner. The lot consisted largely of paperwork, though Lisa was drawn to a set of photographs that wouldn’t have attracted the attention of virtually anyone else:
These photographs show the wood pattern for our mysterious gun. A wood pattern is essentially the original sculpt of a toy—a one-of-a-kind piece of original art that would then be duplicated to create the finished toy. In this case, the wood pattern would have been used to create the silicone molds that were then used to create our hardcopy. Sadly, the person who sold us the photos didn’t have the pattern, but at least we now had independent evidence connecting this rifle to Kenner’s Star Wars line.
But the best was yet to come. A while after that, we had the opportunity to purchase some artwork from former Kenner designer Steve Hodges, and among the pieces he had were these drawings from August 1978:
While none of the drawings that Steve had saved precisely match our rifle, their design style unmistakably matches that of our gun, so we asked Steve about it. He recalled that Kenner was contemplating a follow-up to their Laser Pistol (based on Han Solo’s blaster) and Laser Rifle (based on the standard-issue Stormtrooper weapon), but lacking solid reference for any other movie guns, they asked Steve to come up with a handful of original designs. And it appears that a year or two later, one such design made it all the way to hardcopy stage before being cancelled. Perhaps Lucasfilm balked at the non-movie design, or perhaps cost analysis or some other internal factor killed the project—we likely will never know, unless some bit of paperwork happens to turn up someday—but at least we have this evidence of a vintage Kenner Star Wars toy that never was.
Rancho Obi-Wan was excited to be at Star Wars Celebration Japan! We had so much fun at our booth meeting fans from all over the world who came to celebrate all things Star Wars!
We had a small display of Japanese Star Wars Collectibles and handmade crafts, but utilized most of our space for attendees to sit and create their own Star Wars sketch cards!
About 350 sketch cards were completed by guests of all ages and were displayed at our booth for all the enjoy!
We had fourteen volunteers that assisted with the booth and we couldn’t have done it without them. Many fans had never heard of Rancho Obi-Wan, so it was a great opportunity to introduce them to our museum. We also had visits from faithful fans who stopped by to say hello!
Friday evening the Lucasfilm Celebration Live Film crew stopped by and interviewed our volunteer lead (and wife of Duncan Jenkins!) Anne Jenkins was interviewed about our booth and what we had to offer. It was another opportunity to highlight the beautiful sketch cards that had already been done at our booth and promote our plans for The SAGA Museum!
On Saturday of Celebration Japan, ROW board members and The Saga Museum founding collectors Gus Lopez and Duncan Jenkins gave a presentation at the Fan Stage titled “Inspiring and Serving the Community Through Star Wars Memorabilia.” The panel allowed Gus and Duncan to reach a new audience regarding our plans to create a permanent public museum, The Saga Museum of Star Wars Memorabilia, and our desire to bring inspiration to all who visit it. The quickest way to impart our vision was to show the short video about the genesis of our project. Duncan and Gus could tell the audience was excited about the possibilities when they eagerly applauded at its conclusion. They then proceeded to share our goals, progress, and hopes of inspiring and serving the community with the combination of our collections. Having our memorabilia serve a higher purpose is the core of this endeavor. At the conclusion, there were many thoughtful questions and it was obvious our project had gained many new supporters who were eager to see the museum and its programs come to fruition. It was exciting to see that even half a world away, the universal appeal of the galaxy far, far away and its collectibles was strong indeed!
Special Thanks to Duncan and Anne Jenkins for providing photos and recap!
Each of the collector’s that are part of The Saga Museum Initiative have done a great deal of research on the items in our Star Wars collections. We have all also spent a lot of time on interpretation of these items. Interpretation is the art and science of communicating information about the objects in our collections and their meaning.
Interpretation includes plenty of written information, but some of the most powerful tools we have are visual. And perhaps the most effective visual tool we have is providing context by displaying related items together in a way that each enlightens the other.
For example, the item shown here is one of the first props that Lisa and I ever acquired. While Star Wars fans are likely to recognize the nose of an X-wing fighter, it may not be as obvious to a more casual observer, and even though there’s an explanatory plaque, we all know that a lot of viewers don’t read much of the text provided. In a museum setting, each object generally has a fraction of a second to catch someone’s attention, and “non-obviousness” is a prime reason for someone’s eyes to keep moving on.
A few years after we purchased the X-wing, we had the opportunity to pick up this original storyboard art, which is now displayed directly above the model. This provides an additional opportunity to catch the viewer’s eye, and the shared context also increases the recognizability of the model; odds are now good that even a casual viewer will have an immediate understanding of what these objects are, and they might even take a second now to read the plaque.
Once we’ve captured a viewer’s attention, we gain the ability to share more information, and this is where written information can enter the picture. In a museum setting, this pair of items would be accompanied by text that explains what you’re looking at, and why you’re looking at it. The basic information that would always be present—what is it, who made it, and when—is called a tombstone, and it would look something like this:
Star Wars Original Storyboard Art, Lucasfilm, around 1976
Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter Pyrotechnics Model Fragments, Lucasfilm, around 1976
Below that, we’d provide brief additional text that would attempt to answer obvious questions–for example, if you’ve read the plaque, you may be wondering who Joe Viskocil was, so we’d want to explain that he was a pyrotechnics specialist who worked on more than 80 films including Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, and he won an Academy award for his work on Independence Day.
We would also provide brief information, likely just a couple of sentences, specific to the overall theme of whatever exhibit the items are part of. For example, if they’re displayed in an exhibition about modelmaking, we might focus on the construction of the X-wing prop; in an exhibit about moviemaking, we might focus on how modelmakers work from concept art; or in an exhibit about special effects, we might focus on how the model was blown up.
Finally, a good interpretation would encourage you to think beyond the simple facts. For example, in an exhibition about special effects, if we’d already introduced the concept of computer graphics, we might ask you to consider the pros and cons of practical effects compared to CGI. In an exhibit about moviemaking, we might ask you to consider how you would make an X-wing explode in a YouTube short.
If you’re attending Star Wars Celebration, be sure to visit the Rancho Obi-Wan booth and see Saga Museum member panels at Star Wars Celebration Japan!
Visit the Rancho Obi-Wan booth to draw your own Star Wars Sketch Card and see select items from our collection, and collections of The Saga Museum collector’s Duncan Jenkins and Gus Lopez.
Gus Lopez will be a presenter for the Star Wars Coins and Medallions Panel Friday, April 18th, 12:30pm–1:30pm on the Collector’s Stage.
Duncan Jenkins will be part of the The Colorful World of Vintage Keshigomu (Rubber Erasers) Panel Saturday, April 19th, 12:30pm–1:30pm on the Collector’s Stage. *See Keshigomu sneak peek now!
Duncan Jenkins and Gus Lopez will be presenting the Inspiring and Serving the Community Through Star Wars Memorabilia Panel Saturday, April 19th, 2:30pm–3:30pm on the Fan Stage. This panel is about The Saga Museum of Star Wars Memorabilia Initiative of Rancho Obi-Wan and will cover the history and background on the five extraordinary collections that will be part of the Saga Museum, and feature a glimpse of the incredible Star Wars items and stories that will be unveiled to the public.
Duncan Jenkins will be a presenter for the Star Wars Around the House Panel on Sunday, April 20th 1:00pm–2:00pm on the Collector’s Stage. This fun panel will cover household and kitchen products from a galaxy far, far away!
Bonus! Gus Lopez will be hosting all the panels at the Collector’s Stage at Star Wars Celebration Japan!
We hope everyone has a wonderful time celebrating Star Wars together at Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025!
Let’s take a look at the colorful world of Keshigomu Star Wars Characters and Vehicles first released from Japan in 1978!
Keshigomu means “rubber eraser” and they have been a very popular area of collecting in Japan since the 1970s. There are countless lines from almost every imaginable franchise. So, it’s no wonder that there were multiple series keshi (as the word is usually shortened colloquially) of Star Wars characters and vehicles when the film was first released in Japan in 1978.
We will only discuss one series now, but later installments will deal with the others. If you can’t wait that long, there is still time to book a flight an attend Star Wars Celebration Japan in Tokyo where I will be on a panel entitled “The Colorful World of Keshigomu” on April 19 from 12:30 to 1pm. Also, the Rancho Obi-Wan booth at Celebration Japan will showcase some of these interesting and fun collectibles so stop by to see them.
People (especially kids) love loopholes in the rules and that, I have been told, is the impetuous for the rise in popularity of Keshigomu. An obvious rule is you can’t bring toys to school. But what if you were only bringing an eraser to class? No problem. What if that eraser just happened to look like your favorite cartoon character or a starship? Now you’ve managed to fight the system and have a fun way to escape the tedium of preparing for the rest of your life. Don’t be fooled that any actual erasing took place with these toys [err..] legitimate school supplies.
Keshi are inexpensive and can be purchased in many ways from capsule machines (what we would call gumball machines) to kiosks and even premiums in food promotions. The first line we will discuss is from a company called Maruka Toy Company. These small size erasers (not toys) were sold in 50-piece bags. I don’t know about you but I don’t think I have used up 50 erasers in my entire life. These bags were filled with random Star Wars vehicles and characters roughly an inch and a half tall in a rainbow of colors. Each color was available in opaque and translucent. So, you can see that completing a full set can be quite a challenge. And we all know collectors like a challenge. The small Maruka series consists of the Millennium Falcon, Landspeeder, X-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE Fighter, the Escape Pod (looking more like a Soyuz Capsule), and the intrepid droid duo C-3PO & R2-D2 providing the only actual characters in the bags.
If a 50-piece bag wasn’t in a young kid’s budget or they were a budding gambler, they could instead choose to purchase the keshi in sealed paper bags that each contained five random erasers (not toys) from the line. Interestingly, it seems that a Star Destroyer was available only in these blind bags. In addition to the five colorful vehicles or droids, there was a piece of paper letting the buyer know if they were a winner or loser. If they were a loser, all the young student could do was hang their head in shame and exit the store. But if they were a winner they were treated to a free exclusive keshi of either Darth Vader or R2-D2 (slightly different than the plain Artoo found in regular packs). Four different images can be found on the paper blind bags: Darth Vader or the Droids (shown here) plus the Space Battle photo and the Japanese version of the Hildebrandt art.
You might think surely that is enough keshi for one movie, but, as they say in Japan “Au contraire mon frère.” This is just the beginning. But you will have to wait patiently for the next installment.
As a postscript, when Gus Lopez and I wrote our eponymous price guide “Gus and Duncan’s Comprehensive Guide to Star Wars Collectibles”, we listed the 50-piece bag of the small Maruka keshi in the Toy chapter. But don’t tell any Japanese teachers or the jig will be up and the loophole will be closed.
This is not just an average Star Wars poster now hanging in the expansion at Rancho Obi-Wan. This is a 1977 Factors Hildebrandt Star Wars poster that was recently rediscovered amongst other framed art pieces here in storage!
And it’s not just a 1977 Factors Hildebrandt Star Wars poster… it’s a printer proof sheet copy! (note the color bar on the left hand side). Printer proof sheets are rare, but what makes this piece really unique is that it’s a proof sheet on mylar that has been permanently mounted to a backer board. Normal proofs would be on regular white poster paper. When a photo of this poster was shown to Star Wars poster collectors group, they agreed that none of them has seen one like it before.
Rancho Obi-Wan Board member and Senior Writer at Lucasfilm, Pete Vilmer said, though none like this one have surfaced before, he has Lucasfilm documentation dated June 1977 requesting a mylar poster be made . So this poster proves at the very least an attempt was made to fulfill that request. Why it was never mass produced is still a mystery. Pete suggested the mounting of this poster may have be done as presentation piece to Lucasfilm or within the Factors company, but there’s no confirmation of that.
Perhaps more information will come to light on this piece, and if it does we will update this post. For now, We are just excited to be able to now share this special Star Wars poster in the museum for all to enjoy!
Special Thanks to our docent, Dwayne Smith, for looking into the history of this Star Wars poster.
This is an item that fans of vintage Star Wars Kenner action figures will immediately recognize: it’s the original art for the Star Wars Collector’s Action Stand (or Action Collector’s Stand, or Action Display Stand, depending on where you saw it). It was painted by an unknown artist, probably in the last quarter of 1977 or the early weeks of 1978.
When we acquired the painting in 2001, it had been stored away in darkness for a few decades, so the colors remained vivid, and the board that it’s painted on remained dry and flat. Unfortunately, when it was created, it was almost certainly thought of as an ephemeral object, intended to be photographed and then likely forgotten, so the materials and techniques that were used to craft it would have been selected for efficiency rather than longevity. As a result, some of the paint in one area—the Death Star—was literally falling off in flakes. We needed to act quickly to stabilize it. We called the Seattle Art Museum for advice, and they connected us with a professional art conservation expert who we then contracted to restore the painting and help us preserve it for the future.
This is a page from the conservator’s report showing the state of the painting shortly after we acquired it.
The art conservator determined that the paint that was flaking was most likely formulated for painting plastic models rather than art board, and the board hadn’t been primed to accept that type of paint. Over the course of several weeks, he spent many hours painstakingly gluing down each and every flake of paint that was lifting, as well as replacing a bag full of tiny flakes that had already fallen away, using a needle to apply a tiny droplet of archival adhesive under each one. Next, he carefully filled in the missing areas and blended away the cracks, and finally he applied a coating intended to prevent further paint shedding.
This is a closeup of the restored painting. (The image is presented upside-down to match the image in the conservator’s report above.)
It’s easy to think of a collection as a window into the past, but collectors also think a lot about the future, spending time, money, and effort to ensure that the items in our collections will be around well after we ourselves have passed. We ended up spending as much on the restoration work as we did on the painting itself, but we’re glad that we did. We hope that one day you can enjoy it in person in The Saga Museum of Star Wars Memorabilia.
Mardi Gras is probably not something that comes to mind when you think about Star Wars. In fact, I don’t know of any official Star Wars products created for the parade that takes place on the holiday to celebrate the last day before Lent. But that hasn’t stopped the making of some interesting unofficial items.
Each year Krewes, clubs that create a float for the Mardi Gras parades held all over the world (most notably in New Orleans), pick a theme and create trinkets like beads and doubloons to throw to the parade spectators. Some of these themes have centered around motion pictures or Science Fiction which have Star Wars elements and some have been completely Star Wars-centric. Yoda, R2-D2, and X-Wings have featured prominently in these themes as seen by the doubloons pictured from the 1980’s. These are just a sampling of fun Star Wars-related items celebrating “Fat Tuesday.”
Another interesting item with Star Wars iconography is the drinking glass for Movie Night at the 40th Annual Ball of the Mystic Stipers Society (not to be confused with the Mystic Strippers) for Mardi Gras in 1979. In addition to the X-Wing and King Kong, seen in the photo, the glass also depicts Steamboat Willie and Elvis.
So, if you ever have the chance to attend a Mardi Gras parade, be sure to check out the items being dispersed by the Krewes. You never know when you might end up with a unique Star Wars collectible.
For May the 4th in 2024, the Dairy Farmers of America brands did a nationwide milk promotion in the US. The most prominent item offered was “Blue Milk” under the TruMoo brand which was sold across most of the country, like the blue milk seen in the original Star Wars in 1977. For the completist collector, there is nothing more nerve-wracking than a regional promotion. It’s hard enough to track down international items, but finding variations within a country are a whole other level of madness.
The promotion went far beyond one national brand with Star Wars-themed 1% lowfat, 2% reduced fat, fat free, and whole milk across 22 regional brands with labels featuring Chewbacca, Yoda, Leia, and Luke, respectively. There were also some size variations, the blue milk appeared on some regional brands, and there was even a nuanced 1.5% Fat Milk for those milk connoisseurs who need that precise balance between lowfat and reduced fat milk! Some of these brands were in only available in one or two states such as Alta Dena in California, Cass Clay in North Dakota, Country Fresh in Illinois and Michigan, Creamland in New Mexico, Gandy’s in Texas, Hygenia, in Texas, Oak Farms in Louisiana and Texas, Oakhurst in Maine and New Hampshire, Price’s in New Mexico and Texas, and Tuscan in New Jersey and New York.
We documented 97 different milk containers across this promotion. Because it was so daunting to assemble a complete set, I only went after them opportunistically where I knew friends who might be able to find them for me, since it was impossible to find them all on my own. This photo shows 44 of the known 97 milk containers from the promotion, and since taking the photo I have increased my count to 49 different milk jugs, which is just over half of the set. Also, two of these pictured here (the Turner’s blue Bantha milk containers in the bottom right) are from a promotion in Pennsylvania from a couple years ago.
