The Star Wars Scrapbook
by Stephen J. Sansweet

Published by Chronicle Books

Scott's Rating:   3 out of 4

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Imagine if collecting guru Steve Sansweet took some of his fabled collection, glued it into a scrapbook with a few notations, then gave it to you. That's exactly what this is. It includes production photos, stickers, stationary, cut-outs, buttons, cards, patches, figure card backs, candy packages, and more. The collection not only includes American items, but foreign one's as well. It's all in a spiral bound, hard cover book.

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Scott:

    This is a very nicely put together collection of rare items. It also gives you a chance to own reproductions of some hard to find items such as real Japanese stickers, an invitation to Return of the Jedi, a Lucky Charms punch out X-Wing, old Bantha Tracks newsletters, and a Revenge of the Jedi Boba Fett figure card back (never actually sold). Both the toy collector and movie buff will find items in this they'd kill Steve Sansweet in a heartbeat for. (I'm sure Steve loves that thought.) Since I'm more of a movie buff than toy collector, I loved the old Empire Strikes Back call sheets, Anthony Daniels' "3PO is HUMAN!" matchbook cover, old newspaper clippings, and an old shot of Hamill standing in front of a SW banner (painted by McQuarrie) at a Sci-Fi con. I also personally liked the Star Wars test screening questionnaire. Toy collectors will also find similar such things they love.

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Scott:

    As always, a big issue with me is the cost. This book cost me $35.00. I have to ask myself is the book worth other Star Wars items I'm passing up for it. Since I can't say "Definitely Yes!" I decided to rate this book a 3 out of 4. I was also hoping that the book would have been shrink wrapped because you never know what monkeys will go through the book store and rip the stickers out. However, that would have increased the price even more, so it's hard to win here. The spiral binding is convenient, but at the same time, when they are stacked together on the book shelf, scratch up each other. It was hard to find a nice copy. As far as content goes, there was a disturbingly large amount of blank space on the pages that I thought could have been filled with more items (such as the 4 pages that simply showed stationary). There were also a few items I didn't really care about at all and wished had been replaced with something else, namely the candy wrappers and popsicle wrappers. Not much artwork or interesting text, so I just blew through those pages. But, still, it may interest someone else, so it's not a huge issue. Overall, a good book, but you've got to decide if it's worth 7 Kenner action figures or a couple of SW novels.

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Scott:

    Ice Cream wrappers advertising Darth Vader ice cream with "Jedi Jelly". Not a pretty thought when you have Anakin Skywalker's scarred visage staring at you as you read the book. Ugh.

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