Our Star Wars Collections Aren’t Forever

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I recently visited Gus Lopez's Star Wars collection over in Seattle, one of the most impressive Star Wars collections on Earth. Gus even has costumes that was worn in the Star Wars holiday special. The holiday special. Who has that? This guy does. And he also has one-of-a-kind rare toys. And I hardly ever use the word rare. It's rare that I use the word rare. And I expected to spend the day thinking about what he had collected. And I'm going to show everything that I saw. But instead, I found myself thinking about how we can lose it all and why this matters. Let's go. Recently, I had the opportunity to take a private tour of Gus Lopez's Star Wars collection in Seattle. The visit was an opportunity to help build awareness for the Saga Museum, a project that could give extraordinary collections like this a public future. And yeah, the collector in me was in awe. Kinda like this object. This is the actual Death Star from the 1977 Star Wars movie. Not a replica. Not something used for a lobby piece. It's the actual screen used Death Star. And the story behind it is friggin' interesting. Back when Star Wars finished filming, all of these items got put into storage. When they were making Empire Strikes Back in 1980, they forgot all about the props that they couldn't use in future movies. So into storage they went. Regular storage units that you and me buy to put stuff in that don't fit in our garage anymore. So in this Death Star went. And then, forgotten about it. The storage business even called Lucasfilm to come get their stuff. But Lucasfilm didn't. So the owners of the storage business had to sell the items. And off went the Death Star as well as other things. Eventually, it ended up in an antique mall in Missouri of all places. Then a music store where it was used as a garbage can. A garbage can. The original Death Star was being used as a garbage can. That's right. And then it was miraculously discovered by collectors, verified as being the Death Star. And eventually, it ended up in the collection of Gus Lopez. But that's only one story about one item. And it's estimated that Gus has about 10,000 items in his collection that have just as an impressive backstory as this Death Star. And this is really what this video is about. There's something difficult to explain about standing near objects connected to a story you've carried with you for most of your life. You recognize the shapes before you've even read the labels. And for a moment, you're a kid again. And then you snap out of it and you become a collector again. But this visit also gave me a reason to think about something less comfortable. What happens to all of this once the people who gathered it are gone? Not just where it goes. Who will understand it? Who is going to know which details matter where something came from or why someone spent 30 years searching for it because there was a rumor that it existed? A collection can survive its owner and still lose much of its meaning. And that's the question I want to explore while I show you around. Because behind these incredible objects is a decision that every collector eventually faces. You, me, everybody. We can spend our entire lives assembling something. We can protect it, study it, and love it. But we can't personally look after it forever. Unless you're a vampire. I became a vampire to suck blood and to f*** forever. And even if you've never collected a single action figure, there's probably something in your life you hope someone will care about long after you're gone. And to understand why Gus even matters to this story, you have to look beyond what he owns. In 1994, he created the Star Wars Collector's Archive, an early online home for serious research into this hobby. And he made it at a time when critics of what he was doing said that it is too niche and basically what he was creating in that database was a waste of time for him and humanity. But years later, collectors use it on a daily basis. And I am one of them. He also helped create the collecting track at Star Wars Celebration. It's like Collecting 101 or Collecting University. Seriously, you can get your PhD just by attending these. And Gus also co-authored reference books with fellow collector Duncan Jenkins and many other collaborations that centered around Star Wars collectibles and the props that came from the movie. And they did it at a time when pretty much no one was doing it. Now, people like Gus and Duncan are considered the experts when it comes to collectibles. And all those years of work matter because collecting knowledge becomes more useful when other people can access it. And Gus's private collection, known as the Baba Cabana, includes original work, toy prototypes, cast and crew items, and used screen movie memorabilia like its best known piece, the original Death Star model. And by the way, this room, let's talk about this room. This room is full of rare, one of a kind Star Wars toys, not just the ones that are hard to find today, like the first Vader action figure, but the actual steel molds that were used to make these the ones that Kenner actually used the actual wood carvings that sculptors at Kenner used to tool the designs. And those were shrunk down into wax and metal molds. The actual tools used to make the figures that we love, the actual design templates that made our childhoods, the original art, not the prints, but the actual art that was used on the packaging and the actual items used on those packagings. The rare one of a kind toys that were the prototypes that were photographed that never made it to market, but were used in the photography for the Toy Fair catalogs that were only shown to executives or toy buyers at toy shows or sales meetings. I gotta be honest, I left my soul in this room and I had to keep from fainting as I saw item after item, items here that could be a collector's grail that they search a lifetime for. But Gus, Gus has a room full of it, each with its own story of where it came from, how it was made to be, and how it was made to be. And oh yeah, by the way, he has two rocket-firing Boba Fett's. A J-slot and an L-slot, but who's counting? Oh yeah, and this is just the original Slave Leia costume, or Hut Slayer costume, whatever you want to call it these days. The one Carrie Fisher wore and the one that every boy fantasized about for decades. Yeah, I saw it in person. Gus has it. Gus has it. Think about what an object like that represents. Before it became something collectors would dream of owning, it was something people made to get a movie finished. Real people solving real problems with materials, tools, imagination, and under a budget. That's why some of these things are fragile because they were made with cheap, cheap materials. Then a camera helped turn their work into something enormous. And that connection is part of what makes an original prop so powerful. But the object alone can't explain everything. Who built it? What establishes its connection to the production? Was it used on screen, made as a backup, or created later? Those distinctions really matter. A convincing appearance isn't the same thing as a documented history. Now imagine the person, and the only person, who knows about all of its history is no longer here to tell it. No longer here to pass it down to the next person. And in fact, they're the only one who knows anything about its history. Yeah, gone. Unable to tell its story. And that story is forgotten forever. The piece might remain perfectly safe in a display case while its story becomes uncertain or even lost. That's why I keep coming back to the people behind these collections. Their knowledge deserves care too. It deserves to be written down as history. And a tour gives us a glimpse into that knowledge. The larger challenge is making sure it remains available when the tour guide is gone. And the tour guide is gone. I'm going to offer an example to drive home my point. Jeff Jacob offers a different way of thinking about that challenge. So here's Jeff's story. Over decades, starting in the early 1990s, he assembled an extraordinary collection of vintage toys with rare variations, carded figures, and boxed vehicles and playsets. His Star Wars collection reflected a remarkable commitment to completeness and condition. And then he chose to sell through an auction house called Hakes. And the auction series began in January of 2025, with its fifth and final installment offered in June of 2026. And I own some of these pieces like the rare Canadian Sandcrawler from 1980. They only made Empire Strikes Back versions in Canada. It's in my collection now. But some collectors criticized the decision to sell. And for anyone who understands what it took to build that collection over the years, the emotional question, it's kind of obvious. How do you let something like that go? I mean, after a while, it kind of becomes your identity. That is, if you make it your identity and what defines you. I completely understand the sadness people can feel when a collection is broken up. There's something impressive about seeing years and years of searching brought together in one room. It's super impressive. But I don't think selling erases those years. And I don't think keeping a collection until you die is the test of whether you truly loved it or whether or not you really were an OG hardcore collector. That really doesn't matter at that point. And whatever Jeff's personal reasons or any collector's reasons, they participated in deciding what happened next. That distinction matters. They got to do it on their terms. And when we, the collectors, postpone every decision, well, then someone else eventually has to make them. Often, it's someone who is grieving, overwhelmed, and very, very unfamiliar with what we've spent a lifetime learning and collecting. They may love us deeply without sharing our interest in card back variations or knowing which piece needs special attention or how much they're even worth. And that doesn't make them careless. It makes them people with lives that they need to live and carry on on their own. And an auction can give objects new caretakers. Passing something to another collector can begin another story and pass that story down. But a museum offers a different possibility. Preserving relationships between objects and making those connections available to the public. Both deserve consideration. But the uncomfortable part is knowing that our collections are going to have a future that we aren't going to be a part of. And apart from a will that we make, and even those wishes sometimes are not fulfilled, we pretty much have no decision on where everything is going to end up. The Saga Museum is an ambitious attempt to plan for that future. The project brings together some impressive collections. Steve Sansweet's Rancho Obi-Wan. Gus Lopez's Baba Cabana. Duncan Jenkins' Sithsonian. Yeah, that's right. The Sithsonian. And Lisa Stevens' and Vic Wertz's Imperial Archives. And the organizers describe approximately one and a half million objects across those collections, including rare and one-of-a-kind artifacts. And together, these collections can tell a much wider story than any single spectacular prop can. And that's where I see the connection to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art founded by George Lucas and Melody Hobson. I've actually been there. I've seen it. It is impressive, but the Saga Museum and the Lucas Museum are separate institutions with separate ideas. But there is a shared idea worth considering. A collection can become a public resource for understanding how stories shape people. The Lucas Museum explores storytelling through images, even if they're included in literary art. For me, the Saga Museum offers a more focused opportunity to examine how people responded to Star Wars. Why did we carry these characters home? Why did strangers become friends? Because they loved the same film. What made us bond as a fandom over this movie? It becomes a study in anthropology. And looked at it that way, these objects become evidence of how people lived their lives with the story. Imagine somebody encountering those collections a hundred years from now. People in the future might never experience Star Wars the way we did. They won't remember waiting for the next movie or finding a particular figure in the store or be alive while George Lucas was alive. They will need context. A museum could help them understand why these objects mattered and what our attachment to them reveals about us. They can have remakes of the rooms where the model makers actually built these things down to the cigarette butts, the beer cans, and the music and the voices coming over the intercom that George wants to see the next dailies. Think about being in a room like that. Think about what future audiences can experience in a museum like that. That future takes more than an impressive room. It takes documentation, conservation, people who can interpret the material and resources to keep doing that work. That's why I think the Saga Museum deserves your attention. I want you to visit its website, read about the plans, follow its progress, and share the project with somebody who might care. If you want to contribute, cool. Even buy a t-shirt. But then consider a smaller version of the same question at home. Does anybody know the story behind the things that you've kept? And you don't need a museum to write down where something came from, to photograph it, to tell somebody why it mattered, or to ask whether they actually want to look after it someday. Leaving somebody a collection shouldn't mean leaving them a mystery. They should be inheriting a story. I'm grateful that I had the chance to visit Gus's collection. And I'm very thankful to my friend Trent, who goes by Bespin Guy, for this amazing opportunity. And all of my brothers and sisters who were there to witness this with me. The objects are extraordinary. But what I find myself thinking about is the chance to hear their stories while the person who knows them is still there and can tell me in person about them. We still have that opportunity in this lifetime to create this museum and hear those stories firsthand. We also have that opportunity with our own collections. Here's a question that I'd like to leave with you. When you're no longer here to explain why it mattered. What's going to help the next person or the next generation understand? I think the Saga Museum will matter not just for Star Wars fans, but for humanity itself. And to learn more about the Saga Museum, I'm going to leave a link down there in the show notes or you can always look it up in your favorite search engine of choice. And also please visit the links that support my channel, because using those links really do help out my channel and they make these videos possible. And as always, my friends, thank you and I will see you next time.