The Star Wars movie franchise is among the best performing film assets of all-time. Going back to 1977 brings many memories for Star Wars movie fans and for collectors alike. The Star Wars movie franchise has produced trading cards, comic books, toys, clothing and other memorabilia. These are very desirable collectibles for die-hard Star Wars fans. The 1977 Star Wars cards are still constantly being bought and sold even after 40 years.

Collectors Dashboard evaluates collectibles as an alternative asset class. This means collectibles are attracting the same capital that could have been invested into stocks or bonds. Many collectibles now cost thousands of dollars (or much more). Collectors with a passion to own a collectible for years frequently have to compete directly against investors whose only desire is to make a profit in the future.

Investors and speculators already know there are no guaranteed profits in the stock and bond market, and they can get stuck upside down in property and have to pay taxes year after year. Many collectibles will not appreciate in value either. And many more will end up occupying landfills in the future. Still, some will increase in value handily and the interest in Star Wars now spans 4 generations of potential buyers.

WHY COLLECTORS & INVESTORS KEEP COMING BACK!

One attraction about Star Wars is that the series keeps finding new ways to carry on and reinvent itself. The last 45 years has delivered 9 major movies, 2 additional origin films, as well as cartoons, less-than-stellar 1980s Ewok productions, The Mandalorian on Disney+, and countless numbers of coming shows and films for theaters and for the tens of millions of Disney+ subscribers. There is also the newer Star Wars attractions within the Disney theme parks.

All of this will keep the interest alive and well for Star Wars collectors. It is also absolutely certain to bring in the investing group into the mix from time to time. What does this all translate to for collectors and investors who like to buy up entire card sets to own the whole series?

Topps issued 5 series of cards to make up its 1977 Star Wars card set, but many of those cards were still bought off of shelves in 1978. The order of the cards’ series went as follows: Blue (1); Red (2); Yellow (3); Green (4); and Orange (5). There were also 11 stickers for each series that have to be included for the true “complete-complete set” fans.

Collectors and investors like will find that buying the top cards from 1977, which we have to dub as their “rookie cards” for a tongue-in-cheek relevance, of Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Leah and others is not a cheap endeavor at if they are already slabbed at the highest grades.

The high prices realized in the highest grades makes it obvious that investors have had their hand in the game. What if you knew the best ways to buy top 1977 Star Wars cards without breaking the bank?

HIGH-GRADE, HIGH-PRICE SALES

Of the 330 cards (plus variations, minus sticker cards) that make up the entire 1977 set, PSA’s total population report counts 47,287 cards that have already been graded. And even with these cards having been abused by kids of the 1970s, the population concentrations (without qualifiers) is heavily dominated by 17,646 total cards at PSA 8 and another 17,839 cards graded at PSA 9. That is without considering the other grading companies, but there are 4,097 examples graded at the prized PSA 10.

Card #1 is the blue series of Luke Skywalker and it is handily the most valuable card in the set without considering errors or one-off sales in the top graded examples. Again, this is the equivalent of “the Luke Skywalker rookie card.” Here are some of the recent highest prices that have been seen from PSA prices and eBay data. PWCC Auctions most recent sales were $1,107 in PSA 8 (6/29/2021), followed by $4,450.00 for a PSA 9 (6/27/2021).

A PSA 10 gem-mint Luke Skywalker #1 had a sale price of $7,388.55 from PWCC back on 10/29/2019 and seller “probstein’ had a more recent sale of $6,877.77 on 1/26/2020.

REALIZED SET & SERIES COSTS

A more pocket-friendly way to buy into the 1977 Star Wars cards is by buying a complete set or by purchasing the 5 series sub-sets individually. These will be 66 cards per set without any variations or errors. That makes 330 base cards for the whole set. After almost 45 years it has to be assumed that some cards might still be worth grading.

It is equally as important to have set expectations in ungraded cards. Many sellers and other card owners believe their cards should be listed as “Excellent to Near-Mint” condition when they are not. Some instances may not come anywhere close to high grades from reputable grading services. Collectors Dashboard looked at recently ‘Sold’ listings that were in auction format only. This lowers discrepancies between “offer accepted” and “Buy It Now” prices that may be lower.

A series 1 (blue) set of 66 cards along with stickers listed as EX-NM condition sold for $233.00 after 26 bids on Jul7 5 via seller ‘setup3261’ on eBay. Another sale of a Series 1 complete set with 66 cards and 11 stickers listed in “good condition” sold for $85.00 on July 5, 2021 via seller ‘liv.chol.xocsrcqmtq’ on eBay. Another series 1 complete set of 66 cards plus the 11 stickers sold for $306.00 after 15 bids on June 21, 2021 through seller ‘jimshim8rkd’ on eBay.

A series 2 (red) set of 66 cards listed as a clean (NM/MT) set sold for $60.88 after 14 bids on July 9, 2021 from seller ‘kazcards-ny’ on eBay. Another series 2 (red) complete set listed as “NEAR MINT, CLEAN” sold for $82.55 after 30 bids on July 4, 2021 via seller ‘rycha-49’ on eBay.

A series 3 (yellow) complete set of 66 cards and 11 stickers listed as in “good condition” sold for $66.00 after 2 bids on July 8, 2021 via ‘liv.chol.xocsrcqmtq’ on eBay.

A Series 4 (green) set of 66 cards and 11 stickers listed as in near-mint condition sold for $66.00 after just 2 bids on July 8, 2021 via ‘liv.chol.xocsrcqmtq’ on eBay.

A series 5 (orange) set of 66 cards listed as clean (EX-MT to NM) sold for $75.77 after 5 bids on July 9, 2021 from seller ‘drtom610’ on eBay. Another series 5 (orange) complete set plus 11 sticker cards sold for $103.50 after 5 bids on July 8, 2021 through ‘liv.chol.xocsrcqmtq ‘ on eBay.

eBay seller ‘danese74; sold the complete sets of series 1 thru 5 for a starting bid of $475.00. Their condition was listed in very nice condition and all cards would come sleeved and will be packaged carefully. One ‘Sold Listing’ from June 16, 2021 was 1977 Topps Star Wars Series 1-5 cards and series 1-5 complete set of stickers for $622.00 via seller ‘football6079’ on eBay.

Then there is the infamous case of the C-3PO “error” card. You can look that up on your own, but trust that you won’t want to find yourself having to explain the C-3PO error card to younger kids. That card was corrected, but many cards did escape out into packs. There are actually more than twice as many graded examples of the error card than the “corrected” card.

Collectors and investors alike can always browse the ‘ending soon’ eBay function for 1977 Star Wars complete sets.

ALTERNATIVES BEYOND TOPPS

The 1977 Star Wars set from Wonder Bread is very desirable by collectors and investors. This has just 16 cards in the entire set. The condition is harder to get in high grades because of slight curling and their black borders. Similar to the 1971 Topps baseball set, these cards cannot hide their scuff marks on edges nor dings on the corners. PSA’s entire population of those graded cards is 8,126, and the highest populations are 1,129 at PSA 7, followed by 3,325 at the PSA 8 grade and 2,159 examples at the PSA 9 grade.

A mere 594 of the 1977 Wonder Bread Star Wars examples are graded at PSA 10. This matters. The Topps PSA 10 population of 4,097 versus 47,287 of all grades is 8.66% weighting at PSA 10. Wonder Bread’s PSA 10 population of 594 versus 8,126 of all grades is just a 7.31% weighting at PSA 10.

Luke Skywalker’s card from the 1977 Wonder Bread set is frequently not the highest priced card behind Darth Vader, and Grand Moff Tarkin. These cards are very pricey at the highest grades. These sets routinely are listed for sale on eBay for under $100 in used condition and can be well above $200 in the more crisp conditions. Their prices can be exponentially higher if already graded.

One last set of cards is the 1977 Star Wars ADPAC Stickers set from General Mills. It is not as widely known about and its total PSA population is only 384 total graded cards for the 16-card set. Without qualifiers and half-grades, 111 of the cards are graded PSA 8 and 100 are graded PSA 9. Only 25 have the prized PSA 10 grade. One other collectability issue is that when slabbed for grading they do not fit properly in the slabs.

A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY

As you can see, collectors and investors can buy into the 1977 Star Wars cards without breaking the bank. Individual cards already graded in the 8, 9 and 10 equivalents may also be waiting. Just temper expectations about surprises in gem-mint or even excellent condition. And understand that lower condition cards will limit demand or premiums that buyers will pay in the future.

It would be easy to fall into a rabbit hole of evaluating all of the variations of comic books, toys, movie posters and other memorabilia. Those are for different reviews. If you want to know what real investing versus collecting looks like in the Star Wars universe, the STAR WARS #1 COMIC BOOK DILEMMA presents all sorts of challenges, as will a Star Wars toy prototype of Boba Fett.