Anna Daniels
Star Wars Day has come and gone, but for super-collector Steve Sansweet, every day is an opportunity to celebrate the beloved sci-fi saga. That’s because he’s the owner of the largest collection of Star Wars memorabilia in the world, officially documented by Guinness World Records. The collection is housed in California in a facility known as Rancho Obi-Wan, and in honor of Star Wars Day earlier this week, a virtual video tour of the massive collection of over 500,000 Star Wars items has been made available.
Guinness World Records (via Nerdist) followed Steve Sansweet around Rancho Obi-Wan’s Star Wars collection:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL4peQt_glA?feature=oembed&w=740&h=416]
Along with the endless action figures, some housed very stylishly in custom-built display cases that feel right out of Star Wars, you’ll fine arcade cabinets and pinball machines, Star Wars branded guitars, some of the rarest posters from the saga’s long history of running in theaters, a library of pretty much every Star Wars book ever written, and some truly perplexing bits of Star Wars memorabilia, such as toilet paper sold in Germany that came with the tagline, “Wipe out the Dark Side.” Wow.
It’s not just merchandise though. There are also official props from the movie, including a carbon practice lightsaber that the actors used for choreographing fights, a piece of the Millennium Falcon, chunks of the Death Star, various pieces of costumes from characters like Darth Vader, prosthetics and masks from various aliens, the door from the Mos Eisley cantina, and even the last remains of Qui-Gon Jinn, straight from the funeral pyre from the end of The Phantom Menace.
Normally, you can stop by Rancho Obi-Wan if you’re in Petaluma, California and pay for a private tour since the facility is classified as a publicly supported nonprofit organization and museum. But under the current circumstances, that probably won’t happen anytime soon. However, you can become a virtual contributing member to support the museum, and you’ll get updates on the museum, including stories, photos, and videos, and you can even get some bonus gifts depending on how much you contribute.
To find out more, you can head over to the official Rancho Obi-Wan website to see even more of the collection. They even have a gift shop with hats, t-shirts, stickers, mugs, patches, and even some books providing insight into the various Star Wars memorabilia that’s available in the world.
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