May 4th is here! A play on "may the Force be with you," May 4th is Star Wars' unofficial holiday that fans celebrate around the world. From a collectibles perspective, let's take a look at few recent Star Wars-related sales across comic books, trading cards, and movie posters.
One thing is for sure -- market Forces are strong with these collectibles!
A CGC 9.0 Star Wars #1 35 Cent Variant Sold for $24,999 on April 7th.
A quick review of Star Wars-related comic books demonstrates that the market for key issues is doing well. As an example, let's take a look a rare 35 Cent variant for Star Wars #1 which features the first appearance of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and Princess Leia in comic books. The 35 Cent variant is very difficult to find; there are only 292 blue label copies on the CGC Census.
The most recent copy of this 35 cent variant, a CGC 9.0 copy, sold for a whopping $24,999 on April 7th on eBay which eclipsed its previous all-time sale of $21,600 set in June 2023. Just several years ago, prior to the pandemic in November 2019, another 9.0 sold for a mere $7,920.
Looking at the ROI on this book only over the past five years, you'd never know that the overall comic book market has actually been a bear market for the past two years. A CGC 8.0 of the 35 Cent variant sold for a hefty $8,075 on March 3rd, and a 7.0 sold for nearly as much at $7,990.
A PSA 10 Grogu Kakawow trading card sold for $15,000 on April 2nd.
Huge sales aren't limited to Star Wars characters from the original trilogy either; for example, take a closer look at this 2023 PSA 10 one-of-one trading card of Grogu that sold for unbelievable $15,000 on April 2nd. Manufactured by Kakawow, this non-sport trading card features Grogu, or more popularly known as "Baby Yoda" introduced back in 2020's The Mandalorian. This set had a very limited print run with only 3,000 cases ever produced. The fact that this trading card is the only one of its kind, and received a perfect grade from PSA, may justify its $15,000 price tag in spite of being manufactured just last year. Other highly graded but less rare Kakawow produced Star Wars cards, such as this PSA 10 Palpatine card, sell in the $200 to $800 range.
An autographed Star Wars movie poster recently sold for $13,000.
Not surprisingly, vintage Star Wars movie posters are also popular among collectors with multiple five figure sales occurring on eBay during the past few months. This beautiful Star Wars: A New Hope reproduction movie poster recently sold for $13,000.
This framed poster, which comes with a certificate of authenticity, is signed by much of the cast including Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, George Lucas, Mark Hamill, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, among others.
Personally, I'm a little surprised an autographed movie poster like this doesn't sell for a bit more more -- after all, Star Wars' primary medium is the movies and not comic books, trading cards or toys.
Have you recently seen any newsworthy Star Wars-related sales? If so, please let our community know in the comments section below!
