Collecting the original Star Wars action figures was no big deal for Sansweet. He was buying singles or doubles of everything when they were on store shelves for the first time. Looking at his Kenner toy section makes it feel like Christmas 1979 all over again, seeing the familiar -- and often still unopened -- Star Wars toy boxes. But this collector strives for the rarest of the rare action figures.
"This is my prototype shelf," Sansweet beams, indicating a row of rarely seen figures. "Here is a complete line of Droids and Ewoks figures [based on the cartoon series] that were never produced -- with one exception: Vlix was made in very limited quantities in Brazil. But the rest of these are first-shots or other early versions." Many other action figure rarities also reside inside this cabinet. A missile-firing Boba Fett, the second version; and Yarna d'al'Gargan, a prototype version and a fan-made version of what it would have looked like if it had been produced. There are also several unpainted pieces. And then there's the ultimate figure for this particular collector, the unofficial Steve Sansweet action figure, which was done by Gentle Giant.
"I was the last scan they did before they packed up their gear in Australia for Episode II," says Sansweet. Then they had him send the action figure he wanted his head mounted on. After much deliberation, Sansweet decided on a classic. "Obi-Wan is definitely my favorite character, the mentor, despite some possible character flaws." Hence, the name for his property: Rancho Obi-Wan.
Even in the Sansweet Collection, sometimes you come across some standard collector's fare, like the Classic Trilogy posters that he's displayed since his days in Los Angeles. Starting with the advance one-sheet from the autumn of 1976, the advance of March 1977, the US Theatrical one-sheet, the International theatrical one-sheet, and all the rest of the classic posters. But just as one may begin thinking the posters seem a little tame for Sansweet's collection, it starts to get more interesting as he stands next to a poster featuring a birthday cake with some action figures on it.
"Collectors love this one, and it's a pretty rare poster because it mainly went out to theaters that were still running Star Wars after a year," says Sansweet. "It really tells a great story when you look at release patterns today and you see how many screens movies are opening on. Star Wars opened on 32 screens. It took an entire month before it opened on 100 screens. And so a year later it was still running. Because of the one-year anniversary, 20th Century Fox got it to open up on some more screens, and they probably printed about 1,000 of these posters. So they are very highly prized." This particular poster is also great for a trivia quiz, because, as Sansweet says, "Every collector knows there were twelve original figures. But the poster only shows eleven. What figure is not represented?" The answer is the Jawa. And here's his reasoning. "It makes sense because you have a little figure in the middle [R2-D2], and then they go out sort of by importance, and the Jawa would have been back here, and it's really too small."
Even posters that seem conventional are not when looked at through Sansweet's eye. Take The Empire Strikes Back "Gone with the Wind" poster by Roger Kastel. "This poster is probably one of my favorites but was withdrawn fairly early," says Sansweet. There are two theories on why it vanished so quickly. "One, Billy Dee Williams wasn't in it," he says, "and two, there wasn't enough action in it for Fox. So, it was replaced by a poster with Billy Dee and more action." All in all, Sansweet has nearly 3,000 posters from around the world, but there were more than just movie posters when the films came out, and he has those objects as well.
"This is the hand-painted banner that was used by Lucasfilm at World-Con and Comic-Con in 1976. And I have a photo in my Star Wars Scrapbook (Chronicle Books, 1998) of Mark Hamill standing in front of that. It uses Ralph McQuarrie's silkscreen art, and I am told that those letters were hand painted by Joe Johnston." If that wasn't amazing enough, he has another stunning one-of-a-kind piece. "Those are the original marquee letters from the Loew's Orpheum Theater in New York City," explains Sansweet. "They went up in May 1977. They were one of the original theaters, one of the first 32 to show the film."
Of course, the collection also has thousands of T-shirts, bedding items, food-related products, every toy ever sold in the U.S. and most foreign ones, costumes, glassware, personal grooming items, lamps, badges, ceramics, lightsabers, patches... the list is virtually endless. "Kevin Smith, the director, was over to tape a show for the Sci-Fi Channel, and he kept challenging me to find things," Sansweet says. "He'd day, 'I'll bet you don't have...' and I'd run and get it. He finally gave up after he said, 'You couldn't possibly have a Star Wars fan' and I ran and brought three hand-held paper fans from Japan!"
