A Trip to England, Random Stop and Star Wars “Star-Badges!”

Let’s take a look back to the 80’s of a story about how a trip to England, and a random stop at a petrol station, led to the discovery Star Wars “Star-Badges” and quest to complete the collection!

In the early part of 1989 I was traveling around England. Our coach pulled into a petrol station in the little town of Moreton-in-Marsh to refuel and all the passengers disembarked to stretch their legs and stock-up on snacks for the road. At the checkout counter, I happened to notice a familiar sight: the Star Wars logo. Being the late-eighties, it was not a common image to see in a retail setting since it had been several years since the last movie and there was no expectation of any new material anytime soon from that galaxy far, far away. Always on the lookout for Star Wars merchandise, I made my way up to the counter and discovered a wire rack display with an arched cardboard backdrop touting the famous logo in red and surrounded by a semi-circle of six metal buttons (badges as they are called in the United Kingdom) featuring art of Star Wars characters and ships. These weren’t just any badges, they were “Star-Badges!”

The search for snacks was immediately forgotten as I began flipping through the carded badges hanging from the racks. There were about eight or so badges but, sadly, only one style (Chewbacca). I grabbed one and inquired with the cashier if I could also have the display. A resounding “No” was the curt response. He replied the reason being that they might get more stock later. More stock? From a line of badges that ended six years earlier? Paying for my badge, I took one last look at the display before boarding the coach and continuing our journey into the mist-filled evening. If I couldn’t have the display, at least I would have the image firmly fixed in my memories. As the trip continued, I took the opportunity to examine more closely my new prize. The badge was made of metal about two and a quarter inches in diameter and had unique artwork for the character in addition to a red Star Wars logo. The badge was affixed to the cardboard backer card by skin-wrapped plastic (think shrink-wrap). But the most interesting feature on the badge was two red lights in place of the character’s eyes. That’s right, Star-Badges light-up!

Thus began my quest to learn more about this line and, of course, acquire a set for my collection. The licensee, Starfire UK Ltd., a badge manufacturer out of Scotland, had the license to make these buttons in 1983. There are 12 different badges in the line. Six with the red Star Wars logo and 6 with the black & white rectangular Return of the Jedi logo. The Star Wars logo group consists of C-3PO, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, R2-D2, X-Wing, and Yoda. The more specifically Jedi-related characters emblazoned with the ROTJ logo are: Admiral Ackbar, Bib Fortuna, Gamorrean Guard, Jabba the Hutt, Imperial Shuttle, and the Heroes in their Episode VI costumes (Luke, Leia, Han, Lando). It’s interesting that the main heroes who normally feature prominently on licensed merchandise were relegated to sharing a single badge, while the background characters get a moment in the spotlight on their individual badges.

All twelve buttons utilize the light-up feature in some fashion. Most replace the eyes of the character, but in the case of starships the engine(s) light-up. And, in one case, the barrel of a laser pistol serves as the place for the tiny bulb. When activated, the bulbs blink rapidly in an almost hypnotic way. Unfortunately, there is no on/off switch so I am sure the novelty wore off quite rapidly. It is somewhat ironic that the back of the card states that the badge is “not recommended for young children” which one could argue is also the intended customer of this product. Regardless, the line makes for a fun and colorful set that can be highly challenging to collect. In the decades since my initial acquisition, I have managed to collect all but one of the twelve Star-Badges. The one badge that features the group of Luke/Leia/Han/Lando continues to elude me but my patience will one day be rewarded and my set will eventually be complete. We collectors certainly enjoy a good hunt.

Speaking of rewarding patience, one day in 2022 I was scrolling through social media posts and did a double-take as I saw an image I had not seen in thirty-three years! There was a photo of the wire-rack display with the arched header and six badges. It was the same style store display I missed out on initially and now it was for sale from a fellow collecting friend of mine who lived in Europe. After some quick negotiating I was able to add this display to my collection and transform an elusive memory into a satisfyingly tangible object.

November 18, 2025November 18, 2025

Take a look at Two Kenner Star Wars Action Figures That Changed During the Design Process!

At the Imperial Archives, one of our favorite categories is unproduced toys. This includes toys that were designed and never released, as well as toys that changed substantially during the design process. Let’s take a look at two Kenner Star Wars action figures that fall into the latter category. Each figure is represented in our collection in the form of both a preproduction drawing and an unpainted hardcopy prototype.

First up is an early “uncloaked” version of The Emperor from the vintage Return of the Jedi action figure line:

Two Kenner Star Wars Action Figures That Changed During the Design Process

Star Wars fans who had the original Emperor action figure that was sold in stores will likely recall that the cloak was molded onto the body as part of the figure, but that wasn’t the initial plan. The hardcopy here has no cloak, and the drawing shows that it was going to be a separate molded plastic piece, similar to the cowl on the Chief Chirpa figure released in the previous wave of figures. (Contrary to what some think, this version of The Emperor was not going to have a “soft goods” cloak—the Deco Design Drawing specifies the color as “Dr. Gray” (dark grey), the same as the figure’s body. If the intent had been to offer a cloth cloak, the callout for it would instead read “Dr. Gray Fabric.” The cloak also would be drawn on the figure, not separately. See today’s second item for how soft goods are treated on these drawings.)

We don’t know for sure why the separate cloak was dropped, but it’s easy to speculate that it might have been a cost-saving move, especially given that The Emperor was initially offered free with five proofs-of-purchase from other Kenner Star Wars figures.

Today’s second figure is even more interesting. This early version of Luke Skywalker (Jedi Knight) from Return of the Jedi first became known to collectors more than 25 years ago when it surfaced in hardcopy prototype form. The pieces that turned up were either painted in grey primer or were completely unpainted, so nobody knew what color the figure was supposed to be. Further complicating things, a Kenner source at the time misremembered that this figure was made in the Power of the Force era at the end of the vintage toy line, leading to speculation that “Luke in Robes” wasn’t related to Jedi at all, but might have instead depicted Luke in his medical robes from the end of The Empire Strikes Back, or perhaps was even a non-movie concept.

A couple of years later, though, the Deco Design Drawing showed up; it clearly lists the figure as “Jedi Luke ROJ,” and is dated June 21,1982, the very same month that Deco Design Drawings were being made for the first wave of Return of the Jedi figures. (Note the drawing above for The Emperor, in the second wave, is dated November 16, 1982.) The real surprise here, though, is in the list of colors specified for the figure: instead of the black outfit Luke wears in the film, this figure is dressed in rust-colored robes with a rust-colored fabric cloak. Below, I’ve digitally colored the photo of the hardcopy with the colors specified in the drawing; fans of vintage action figures will note a strong resemblance to Kenner’s Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi figure from the original Star Wars.

However, not everyone was convinced that the drawing and the hardcopy were necessarily connected. But a little while later, collector Chris Fawcett noticed that a photograph in a 1983 catalog from Meccano—the company who sold Kenner’s action figure line in France—included several prototype Return of the Jedi figures, including a Luke in rust-colored robes that matches the hardcopy!

So this solved one mystery—the mysterious “Luke in Robes” hardcopy is definitely the same rust-colored version of Luke that was briefly in the works for the launch of the Return of the Jedi action figure line. But there’s still one mystery to answer: Why, in June 1982—a full month after principal photography had wrapped on Return of the Jedi—did Kenner appear to believe that Luke’s new Jedi outfit looked like Obi-Wan’s robes from A New Hope?

October 17, 2025October 17, 2025

A Little-Known Handheld Return of the Jedi Video Game from 1983

Each of the four founding collections of The Saga Museum includes many prototypes of unproduced toys. Here’s a unique one from the Imperial Archives—a little-known handheld Return of the Jedi video game from 1983.

At the start of the 1980s, Parker Brothers was a major player in the young handheld video game market. Their Merlin game, launched in 1978, sold 2.2 million units in 1980, making it the single best selling toy or game in the United States that year. Two years later, Parker’s Atari 2600 console adaptation of Konami’s arcade hit Frogger outsold even Merlin, but they were shut out of the handheld market for that title when those rights were licensed to competitor Coleco instead. Their adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back was also limited to consoles.

For 1983, Parker Brothers intended to capture both parts of the electronic revenue stream with two new games planned to have both console and handheld versions: Q*Bert and Return of the Jedi: The Ewok Adventure. While they successfully released Q*Bert as a handheld game and for multiple computer systems and consoles (including ColecoVision), The Ewok Adventure never made to market. Apparently, Parker Brothers and the game’s designer couldn’t agree on the controller scheme for the Atari 2600 version of the game, so the whole project was cancelled. A prototype cartridge of the Atari game was awarded “Rarest Star Wars Video game” in 2015 by Guinness World Records.

A page from Parker Brothers’ 1983 catalog

This handheld prototype is equally rare. In this context, the word “handheld” is deeply misleading, as this fully functional prototype stands 43 inches high, 29 inches wide, and 40 inches deep. (The video below will give you an idea of the scale.) I’m told it was on display at Parker Brothers’ 1983 Toy Fair trade exhibition, where it was used to encourage toy distributors to order the finished product.

Gameplay is unusual (and, without instructions, took me a while to figure out). You move the Ewok left and right across a tree branch at the top of the screen while, at the bottom, two AT-STs patrol back and forth. One of the walkers is an enemy shooting up at you; the other is manned by Chewbacca (appearing as a yellow shape at the top of the AT-ST). Chewie throws rocks up to you, which you catch and toss back down at the enemy walker. Once you’ve hit the required number of enemies in each level, you coast down to the ground on an Ewok glider, still trying to avoid fire from the enemy AT-ST, and also trying to avoid the edges of the playfield. Whenever you do something wrong—such as getting shot, hitting Chewbacca, or when your glider hits an edge—a scout trooper advances up the tree trunk at the right side of the screen; when he reaches the top, your game is over.. As you advance through levels, the game gets faster, and the number of AT-STs you have to defeat is increased.

Game sounds are simple beeps and tones consistent with similar products of that era, and gameplay is on par with the average handheld of the time. (I think it’s moderately fun, but it lacks the diversity of Merlin or the addictive gameplay of Mattel Electronics’ classic 1977 Football.)

October 10, 2025October 10, 2025

Vintage Food Collectors Have Discovered A Lot From Star Wars Food Ads!

Vintage food collectors will often comment on the extreme scarcity of Star Wars food packaging that they’re able to find years later. While many saved highly-publicized Star Wars food premiums that were advertised with purchase of food items, few thought to save the actual packaging. As a result, there are still to this day many rare, one-of-a-kind, and unknown-to-still-exist Star Wars food items. As collectors, one way we are able to learn what was made is through these ads in magazines, newspapers, and comics from the period.

KP Outer Spacers was a corned-based snack food which the British call “crisps” and Americans correctly call “chips”. These snacks were shaped like spaceships, so it was well suited as a Star Wars promotion. This started in early 1978 shortly after the release of Star Wars in the United Kingdom and offered a mail away Star Wars “Fighter Kite”, made by the British toy company, Palitoy. The offer required kids to send in 3 wrappers and 95p to receive a kite, reducing the number of intact bags saved to this day. The promotion appeared on three different flavors of KP Outer Spacers: beef burger, chutney, and pickled onion.

The KP Outer Spacers promotion was advertised in various Star Wars comics such as the March 4, 1989 issue of 2000AD (a British science fiction comic) and in the Marvel Star Wars Weekly comic from February 29, 1978. Marvel’s Star Wars comic, which was monthly series in the United States, was published in a weekly series in Britain.

KP Outer Spacers bags are next to impossible to find, but here’s an example of a bag of chutney flavoured [sic] chips with the Star Wars Fighter Kite offer details. This is also a rare example of a food promotion where even the premium is super difficult to come by!

Nabisco launched the first cereal promotion in Britain on boxes of Shreddies cereal. In this case, the premium is the packaging, as each box contained a small sheet of Letraset stickers of Star Wars characters that could be affixed onto the back of 4 different Star Wars scenes on the box backs.

The Shreddies offer was promoted in various UK comics such as the June 17, 1978 issue of Tiger and the May 24, 1978 issue of Star Wars Weekly.

The Shreddies offer appeared on 10 ounce and 15 ounce boxes of Shreddies cereal, so with 4 different scenes on the box backs, there are 8 different Shreddies Star Wars boxes to collect!

Coca Cola ran a massive campaign in Japan for the release of the first Star Wars film. Jonathan McElwain wrote an extensive blog article on the Star Wars Coca Cola promotion in Japan that I’d highly recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about this fascinating Coca Cola promotion. One of the places where this was advertised was in the July 2, 1978 issue of Weekly Shōnen, a weekly manga comic that is popular in Japan.

Each Coca Cola product brand (Coca Cola, Fanta Orange, Fanta Grape, Fanta Apple, Sprite, Fanta Club Soda, and Fanta Golden Grape) had 50 different bottle caps. Bottles were also sold in six packs with two different six pack trays: one with C-3PO, Luke Skywalker, and Ben Kenobi, and another with the Escape pod.

Some American Star Wars collectors might be surprised to learn that there was a Nestlé’s Quik Star Wars food tie-in. Well, not exactly. Nestlé, which offered Star Wars jewelry mail away premiums on wrappers of their candy bars, also did a newspaper campaign for Kenner toys, which included the Star Wars large size action figures and the X-Wing and TIE Fighter vehicles. Unlike other Quik food promotions, as far as I know, this promotion never reached the actual Quik cans, but here is an image of a similar Quik can for a toy promotion from 13 years earlier for a British boy band using a can label design that has remained largely unchanged over those years.

Kraft brought Letraset stickers back for The Empire Strikes Back in a Dairylea cheese promotion in the United Kingdom. There were four different Dairylea cheese spread boxes, each containing a different black and white Star Wars scene on the back of the container. Kids could find a small sheet of Letraset stickers inside the box that could be used to add characters and objects to the scene. This was advertised in the Marvel adaptation for The Empire Strikes Back in the Star Wars Weekly issue for May 29, 1980. Kids could also mail away for an Empire Strikes Back “bumper transfer pack” that contained additional Letraset stickers. This Marvel issue also included a small Letraset sheet for this Kraft Dairylea series.

Kraft would later go on to do another Dairylea cheese promotion for the Droids and Ewoks cartoons in the mid 1980s with different characters appearing on cheese wedges.

For Return of the Jedi, Amora offered Star Wars glasses in jars of Dijon mustard in France. This promotion was advertised in the Franco-Belgian comic, Spirou.

There were four different Star Wars glasses to collect: Chewbacca and Ewok, “Dark Vador” and Troopers, “Luc” and Dark Vader, and Luc and Yoda.

The Hi-C promotion for Return of the Jedi included a mail away offer for Return of the Jedi t-shirts and caps. This was advertised in newspapers and directly on drink labels. Kids could send 3 quality seal labels from any Hi-C drink plus $3.99 or $3.25 for the t-shirt or hat, respectively.

Labels and intact Hi-C cans are surprisingly difficult to track down. Even though the small rectangular quality seal was the only portion of the label that needed to mailed in, even partial labels were not often saved. This Return of the Jedi promotion appeared on 11 different flavors of Hi-C drinks. Looking at the three labels above, only the orange and grape drinks state “All Natural Flavors”, which tells you everything you need to know about Fruit Punch.

Possibly the most obscure food promotion from the vintage years was conducted by Doriana in Argentina. Over many years, Doriana has created collectible margarine containers for popular comic characters, superheroes, Disney characters, sports figures, and more. The concept is illustrated in this ad where kids are encouraged to cut out the character on the container lid along with a small plastic strip underneath it to make a stand. Needless to say, this tended to cause many of the container lids to be destroyed.

Here are two examples of fully intact Doriana margarine lids for “Wicket the Ewok” and “Imperial Scout”. The Imperial Scout (or Biker Scout) also includes the original Doriana margarine container.

One of the last Return of the Jedi food promotions occurred in Finland from 1984-1985 for Star Wars themed licorice and fruit candy, as indicated by the dates of these comic book covers. The back covers of these comics had full color ads where kids could mail away for 1 of 5 different flavors of these Star Wars candy boxes.

Here’s an example of one of the Halva licorice boxes. All the candy boxes featured Darth Vader on the front with 9 different images of Star Wars characters and spaceship card art on the back.

One of the most elusive food promos occurred in Sweden in 1984 for Hemglass ice cream. Hemglass “Star Mint” and “Big Star” popsicles could be bought from local ice cream vendors driving around the neighborhood in Hemglass trucks as depicted in the lower right hand corner of this ad in an issue of “The Phantom” comic. To date, I have never found nor have seen any packaging related to this food promotion, so it’s fair to call it a Phantom menace.

A little known cereal tie-in in 1985 appeared on covers of the Marvel’s Return of the Jedi weekly comic in the UK. As was standard in the day, toy premiums would occasionally get attached to the covers of these comics, literally taped onto the front. Two of the promotions were for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, one in March 1985 for dinosaur 3D cards, and another in August 1985 for plastic plane models. Obviously, these premiums had nothing to do with Star Wars, but their placement on the Return of the Jedi made them canon!

September 22, 2025September 24, 2025

The Importance of Stuart Freeborn’s Yoda Archive

Usually, when I write about items from the Imperial Archives, I’ll focus on items that you will hopefully one day be able to see at The Saga Museum of Star Wars Memorabilia, but this time, I’m going to include a couple of important items that probably won’t ever go on public display there. I am including these items, because of the significance of Stuart Freeborn’s Yoda Archive.

I first learned about Stuart Freeborn when I was in elementary school, reading about the making of each Star Wars movie. His credits on Star Wars and Return of the Jedi—“makeup supervisor” and “makeup designer,” respectively—are fairly unassuming; only his title on The Empire Strikes Back—“makeup and special creature designer,” really offers a clue of the major role that he really played. Stuart was responsible for bringing to life truly fantastic characters including Chewbacca, Jabba the Hutt, the Ewoks, and most notably, Yoda.

Many years ago, as Stuart was nearing the end of his life, he wanted to make sure that key materials from his production archive would be saved for posterity, so he made arrangements to find people who would appreciate and preserve these items. Lisa and I were honored to become the home for Stuart’s Yoda archive.

This consisted of everything Stuart could find that related to the creation of Yoda, from piles of tiny screws used in the mechanisms inside the puppet’s head to random bits of plaster; from design sketches to screen-used pieces. Here are some of the highlights:

These are excerpts from a spiral bound notebook Stuart dedicated mostly to the creation of the Yoda puppet (though there are also a couple of notes on Chewbacca). The sketches show how the puppet head was designed in layers surrounding a space for the puppeteer’s hand.

These are plaster components that correspond to the layers shown in the sketch, as well as a fiberglass mold for the “plunger,” the main inner structure.

These are molds and pieces related to Yoda’s hands, nails, lips, and ears.

This is a set of Polaroids showing a mechanism for controlling Yoda’s eyes, accompanied by a variety of eyes and potential mechanisms for moving them.

These are parts of a “Yoda Stand-In,” a static figure that could be used to set up lighting and arrange camera shots without requiring a puppeteer to hold up the puppet. (The figure on the right is displayed in the original prop backpack that Luke uses to carry Yoda in during The Empire Strikes Back, which we acquired separately.)

In the first photo, the head on the far left is a preproduction prototype; the heads on the right are the only two Yoda puppet heads that appear on screen in The Empire Strikes Back. The heads were made from foam latex, which desiccates, shrinks, and eventually disintegrates over time; new heads were made for Return of the Jedi. The photo on the right shows a harder “biscuit foam” head, which may be the best surviving original three-dimensional representation of what Yoda actually looked like in 1980.

The bad news is that the condition of the original heads makes them unsuitable for museum display. The good news is that, between the molds and the biscuit-foam head, we have the most significant components from the Yoda Archive needed to construct the most realistic possible replica of the original Yoda puppet.

Propstore’s Brandon Allinger connected with Stuart Freeborn’s assistant Nick Maley, who molded the original latex parts for Yoda for both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, to create this replica, which we do hope will one day be on display at The Saga Museum. (Museums regularly display replicas of fragile items in order to conserve the originals for posterity.)

This is a working puppet, complete with mechanisms to open and close the eyes and to move the eyes and ears, the same way they were done in the original films. The first time I saw the finished puppet, Nick was operating it, and it genuinely felt like Yoda was really alive, right there in front of me. As soon as he took his arm out of the puppet, the life was gone; it’s something you’d have to see to believe.

And I hope that one day you will.

If you’d like to learn more about Nick Maley, please visit http://nickmaley.com/.

July 30, 2025July 30, 2025

Thank you for your support of The Saga Museum at San Diego Comic-Con 2025!

We are still catching our breath after returning from San Diego, but wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who showed enthusiasm and support for The Sage Museum Initiative of Rancho Obi-Wan at San Diego Comic-Con 2025!

Whether you attended our panel on The Saga Museum, bid on items in the Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies: TCM ECHOES from the GALAXY auction or took the time to come up on the convention floor to say hello, we truly appreciated and felt your support. Thank you!

Stay tuned for an official recap of all things from San Diego coming soon.

July 2, 2025July 2, 2025

Echoes from the Galaxy Auction now open for Bidding!

Julien’s & TCM Present: Echoes from the Galaxy.

Comic-Con Museum presents: TCM & Julien’s Auctions Echoes from the Galaxy

The exhibit and auction will feature many items from the founding collections of The Saga Museum® of Star Wars Memorabilia.

Additional featured collections include those of former Lucasfilm Art Director Rio Phior and former Lucasfilm In-House Designer Melanie Paykos.

The auction will end with live bidding at Comic-Con Museum® in San Diego on July 27. You do not need to be present to continue bidding. See Julien’s for different ways to bid on the last day.

REGISTER AND START BIDDING TODAY!

More about The Saga Museum® Initiative

June 9, 2025June 9, 2025

The Colorful World of Keshigomu Star Wars Part 2!

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!

May 24, 2025May 24, 2025

A Vintage Star Wars Kenner Toy That Never Was…

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.

May 7, 2025May 7, 2025

Rancho Obi-Wan at Star Wars Celebration Japan

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!

Rancho Obi-Wan at Star Wars Celebration Japan

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!