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Review
by Ewan, Star Wars Books, 2009:
"A quick flick through this book is reminiscent of glancing
through a copy of a good quality Star Wars collector's guide.
However, 1,000 Collectibles is more than your usual
collector's guide with its pictures and price evaluations as, even
though none of the items in this book contain evaluations, this book
captures both those commercial and non-commercial pieces of Star
Wars memorabilia that stand apart from your normal collector's
collection. These pieces have been collected over a thirty year
period and belong to a collection containing over 75,000 items and
include almost everything produced that has a Star Wars label
or can be identified as belonging to Star Wars. It's just as
well that Sansweet and Neumann only selected 1,000 items from this
collection as this paperback book weighs just over three-and-a-half
pounds - a book of this quality cataloguing the whole collection
would require a forklift to carry it. All of the 1,000 selected
items are accompanied by high quality photographs and most have a
personalised comment from the authors that explain a little of the
item's background and, on occasion, how it came to be in their
collection, hence the book's subtitle: Memorabilia And Stories
From A Galaxy Far, Far Away.
"The selected 1,000 pieces have been split into 6 chapters that
catalogue the six main groups of memorabilia. The first chapter, Play
With It, deals with toys. A rather obvious place to start as
toys from the Original Trilogy period, particularly Kenner's action
figures, became the first Star Wars collectible items. But it
doesn't focus exclusively on Kenner's figures, although Sansweet
does provide a concise history of these figures, instead the reader
is taken on a voyage around the world (and this is the same for the
other five chapters) as Sansweet and Neumann compare how different
territories marketed similar and different pieces of memorabilia.
So, we have action figures, jigsaws, games and other toys from the
US, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and elsewhere from 1977 right up
to 2008. They have selected not just the obvious but also the
wonderfully different, like the marvellous wind-up clockwork tin
toys from Japan or the delightful Ewok plush toys from Spain.
"This is followed by Wear It, a chapter dedicated to
clothing and apparel: from the t-shirts of 1977 and the Underoos of
the 1980s to the Darth Vader Hoodie of 2008. There are belt buckles,
costumes, flip-flips, gloves, helmets, jackets, pin-badges, masks,
sneakers, slippers, ties, watches, even pet clothing - all with the Star
Wars name attached to it or sewn into it. Next comes the
amusingly titled Eat It Or Keep It, which looks at licensed
food products. Fans of a certain age will readily recall Star
Wars breakfast cereals, particularly Kellogg's C-3P0's from the
mid-1980s, even Star Wars Popsicles, while younger fans may
be more familiar with the burger chains and fizzy drinks tie-in
promotions for the Prequel Films. However this book also includes
milk cartons from the US, Coca-Cola & Fanta bottle tops from
Mexico and Japan, microwaveable curries from Japan, Red Bull cans
from Thailand and fromage frais pots and pasta shapes in tomato
sauce tins from the UK. It beggars belief if some of these items may
still contain their original contents - at least the contents of the
milk cartons appear to have been disposed of and, hopefully, the
cartons cleaned.
"The fourth chapter, Look At It, looks at those pieces
that are meant to be displayed and admired. Items like the extremely
rare bronze statues of Yoda and Darth Vader or the R2-D2 and C-3P0
Fan Film Awards, but Sansweet and Neumann do not forget the trading
cards (including the infamous x-rated C-3P0 card from 1977), or the
Bobble Head figures, or the replica lightsabers, or the maquette
statues and the posters that are more accessible to the average fan.
Chapter five is, rather aptly, titled Use It. It examines
those everyday items and objects that we use all the time, the only
difference is that these items have Star Wars stamped on
them. So we have everything from umbrellas and golf bags in Japan,
cookie jars and skateboards in the US, lunch boxes and snow boards
in Canada, schoolbags in Germany, toothpaste in Spain, bubble bath
in the UK and perfume in France.
"The last chapter, Can You Believe It, focuses on the
unusual and bizarre items that have been licensed by Lucas, like the
UHU glue stick with Ewok figure from Italy, or the Australian Return
of the Jedi stickers found in bags of dog food, or the Episode
III sick bags used by Virgin Atlantic.
"Throughout the book some of the nicest pieces of memorabilia
are the fan-made items, like the AT-AT wooden figure from 1980/81
that a father hand-made for their kid. It is also nice to see
recognition in this book for those unofficial products, what some
refer to as 'bootleg', but are mainly unlicensed and therefore
illegal products, such as the UK thimbles or the Japanese resin
model kit of a scantily clad female stormtrooper made in an unknown
backyard garage.
"1,000 Collectibles is not your usual
read-it-cover-to-cover book, rather it is one of those
pick-up-and-read books that you will return to again and again. Some
of the more amusing items of memorabilia make great talking points
between Star Wars fans and non-Star Wars fans alike and as such 1,000
Collectibles is a book that should be on every coffee
table."
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