Star Wars Scrapbook

The Essential Collection

Stephen J. Sansweet

Published by Virgin

Collectors from all over the world get their little collecting mitts on all kinds of stuff. A lot of it I see at conventions and memorabilia fairs, from everything ranging from long-lost toys to sweet wrappers. They're a crazy bunch.

One such crazy man has gathered together a whole load of material in one hardback book, with all kinds of Star Wars stuff in there. It's not just simple reproductions of things like old toy cards and things like that - oh, no, that would be far too simple - but a gathering of all those things that we've forgotten as older Star Wars fans, and even more stuff we could have never got our hands on.

It's got newspaper clippings, theatre questionnaires, bumper stickers, old confectionery wrappers that could be folded into facemasks (not that you'd do such a thing these days), badges, production photos... and not just from the States or the UK either. France and Japanese merchandise feature heavily also. A great touch in the book is the reproduction cut-outs, where the original format of the facemask or folding spaceship is included so that if you wanted to, and you'd be mad to deface the book, you could actually recreate those heady days of childhood when you cut stuff up without realising that somewhere in the world a collector was screaming.

The book is a long thick affair with coiled ring-binding that makes it look like a huge scrapbook - for obvious reasons - with pages of reprints and actual reproductions. Some of the items in there are surprising, making you sit back and think 'did they actually make this stuff?'

All this is accompanied by text which explains the collectible's origins and why it means so much to Stephen. It is a very nicely presented piece of work.

So, if you want to relive those heady days of the original cinema releases then get this publication. It's a veritable time machine.