Today was a great mail day. The last two medallions came to finish my set of 12 from Star Wars Celebration IV. These medallions were handed out free and random to the people who attended the collecting panels at CIV. I managed to receive 4 of these and Sarah got 3 during the 2 days that we were able to attend. I think we only missed 1 from those two days. The rest were handed out on the days we were not able to attend. When we got home Sarah allowed me to trade her duplicates with other collectors which brought the number up to 7 that we received for free. These things sold like wildfire the following few months on ebay. Some of the complete sets sold for over $1000. I wasn’t sure if I was going to seek out and complete my collection but here we are a year later and prices have thankfully dropped quite a bit. Complete sets now seem to sell in around the $500 range. Over the last few months I picked up the remaining medallions and now my set is complete. There were only 350 of each passed out at the convention and 500 of each actually made, so that means that only 500 complete sets are possible. That is a pretty limited collectible. The medallions are officially licensed product however the bill to have each made was provided by a sponsor. The sponsors are some of the most highly respected collectors in the vintage community. It is pretty amazing that they footed the entire bill to have these made and expected nothing in return. There are also gold versions of the medallions and complete sets of those were handed out to those who presented at the collecting panels. Another collector put together a custom frame to hold all 12 medallions for those sets. Luckily he decided to allow anyone to order the frames, so yes I do have one ordered and I will update when I receive it.
The sponsors for the medallions are
Obi-Wan Kenobi – Stephen J Sansweet
C-3PO – Mark Salotti
Chewbacca – James Gallo
Darth Vader – Duncan Jenkins
Death Squad Commander – Todd Chamberlain
Han Solo – Ed Albano
Jawa – Chris Nichols
Luke Skywalker – Gus Lopez
Princess Leia – Ron Salvatore
R2-D2 – Chris Fawcett
Sandpeople – Chris Georgoulias
Stormtrooper – Mike Mensinger
The 12 characters were chosen because they were the first 12 figures that were released in 1978. I’m grateful to have been able to attend the event I just wish I could have attended the panels from the other days. The information that was shared was very informative and the medallions were a nice little perk for attending. Similar medallion sets were made for Celebration Europe which was a couple months later and Celebration Japan this year. The Europe set featured the same 12 characters but with the logos from different countries around Europe and the Japan set shows some of the exclusive toys from Japan. I decided not to try and get those since I did not attend those events and the cost involved in getting those sets from scratch.
I can’t wait to see the coins in the frame!