Home to the world's largest Star Wars collection
And besides ice cream flavor, this episodes questions for Rancho Obi-Wan:
What is the Rancho Obi-Wan Experience? It’s more a feeling. It’s nostalgia, excitement, joy, fun, unique. When you come to Rancho Obi-Wan we welcome you to our home. We introduce you to our animal-friends. We walk to the back barn and look at the rolling hills; and a few outdoor Star Wars things like a full-sized Jawa Sandcrawler tread. But it really hasn’t changed over the years. Steve set the tone from the very beginning.
In the beginning—July 1998 when I bought the property—Rancho Obi-Wan was 2 1/4 acres with an updated farmhouse, three large former hen houses and overgrown fields with a junked car, part of a truck and half-buried containers of who-knew what. The first order of business after moving in was to clear the fields, find temporary housing for the collection and figure out next steps.
Continue reading “Behind-the-Scenes: The Beginning in Petaluma”
Before Dallas Fan Days (the big con) there was was Dallas Fan Days (the teeny con). Fan Days was often held at the small community center in Plano, Texas. During this time Official Pix, the show producer, was holding the Official Star Wars Fan Club Breakfast. Looking back, it seemed so calm and quaint.
Continue reading “Happenings: Dallas Fan Days III October, 2009”
With a record 205 attendees, Rancho Obi-Wan’s fundraising gala, celebrating 40 years of Star Wars collecting, was a huge success.
Rancho wants to thank all the attendees, volunteers, and absentee bidders who made the Gala an exciting event. In addition, we want to thank our gala sponsors including Entertainment Earth, Pop Minded by Hallmark, Sphero, Funko, Topps, Cartamundi and Kotobukiya. Kudos to donors who contributed everything from original art and prints for the silent and live auctions. Rousing entertainment was provided by DJ Elliot Hansen and MC Mark Daniel.
Thank you for your support in 2016. We look forward to partnering with you to inspire the world through Star Wars in 2017. Happiest of holidays and a bright new year to you all.
The Star Wars collector community knows no bounds. People collect everything from action figures to autographs, art prints to coins, but my favorite of all the collecting genre is patches. If you weren’t a patch collector before reading this, I hope that by the time you’re through you might want to snag your first. After all, patch traders are nothing without people to trade with. So what is it about patches? Well, it’s not just one thing, it’s many.
Thank you for your tremendous support and for sharing our posts and information on social media!
Together we raised more than $28,000 to help Rancho Obi-Wan in our spring fundraising campaign. Every dollar raised from 400+ donors and 20+ individual fundraisers supports our mission to inspire kids—and the kid in all of us—by sparking the imagination and creativity that makes Star Wars the worldwide phenomenon that it remains after nearly 40 years.
Your continuing support helps fund the operation of the museum including the preservation of collectibles and documentation for future generations, lets us give free educational tours to schools, allows us to donate tours to other charities for their own fundraisers, and helps support traveling exhibits of specially curated objects.
None of the funds raised goes to acquire or ship collectibles so we would also like to thank those who have recently donated pieces to the museum.
In the U.S., your donations are tax-deductible (check with your tax advisor), but the worldwide care and backing for our mission is priceless. This is our fifth year operating as a nonprofit and we continue booking tours and events, but we will always need your help to keep the lights on and our mission moving.
The Force is truly strong with you all!
Our best regards,
Steve Sansweet, CEO
Anne Neumann, General Manager
Our Board of Directors and Staff
^ Thank you note by Drawing Board Greeting Cards circa 1977
Unveiling Finn’s helmet—from the most authentic line of prop replicas ever made. Rancho Obi-Wan is proud to take part in the unveiling of a new line that comes as close to screen-used props as possible. Thanks to Lucasfilm, we’re excited to add to our collection this incredible FN-2187 Stormtrooper helmet with bloody handprint, part of the Star Wars Collectibles: Ultimate Studio Edition line. It’s as close to a screen-used prop as you can buy.
Last year I wrote a blog celebrating my ninth year here at Rancho Obi-Wan. All of a sudden another year has swept past and now I’ve been here a full decade! And what a year it was! With the anticipation and build-up to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rancho Obi-Wan had more than a few irons in the fire.
Throughout the year we hosted more than 100 tours of the museum that included friendly folks from Lucasfilm, Disney, retailers and licensees, Forbes, ABC News, Agence France-Presse, CBS Evening News, KNTV, MTime China, B Magazine Korea, Santa Cruz Skateboards, Space Channel Canada, NHK Japan and five local schools. We contributed tours as prizes for local charities to auction off. And Steve gave scores of interviews to both U.S. and worldwide media.
Continue reading “A Great Year to Celebrate a Decade at ROW”