Topps – US – Star Wars Heritage (2004)

This Topps card set might be a long-time collector's dream set in many ways. Planned to be released at the same time as the collector's DVD set of the original trilogy, this will be the first card set that will encompass all 6 Star Wars films.

While film three will only have 'preview' images included in the set, perhaps this card set will serve as a sneak peak at some of the great possibilities to come for Star Wars cards once all 6 films are completed. Finally, card sets can be created that tell the full story, and show a character's full development.

Star Wars fans old and new will be able to appreciate a card set that borrows so much from earlier card series, while still presenting something new and impressive for the collectors of today. Kids who never had a chance to experience the fun of opening the original wax packs, will have some of that fun opening these cards. Very similar to the Heritage cards put out for their sports card series, the Star Wars Heritage cards will feature vintage card designs printed on a gray-back card stock and will come complete with gum in every pack (wrapped however to protect the cards).

The experience of opening a box of Heritage cards is pretty amazing. The smell of the gum coming from the box is amazingly sweet. The gum itself is just a bit modernized from what we used to pull from packs as kids. This gum is sugar free, and it is softer than the original gum. Plus a clear foil wrapper protects the cards from gum oils. Still, opening Heritage packs is very similar to opening vintage packs. The wrappers are no longer sealed with wax, but do have a paper consistency, and they mirror original wrapper designs, imitating the old Luke/Obi-Wan wrapper and the old C-3P0 wrapper from vintage series.

It should be noted these are not merely reproductions of vintage cards. These are new cards, created in a vintage style. The cards feature all new images. While the scenes and characters will be familiar, these are images never before presented on Topps cards. And they are great images, presented with the now well known captions that range from simple to snappy.

This is a card set that also borrows heavily from some non-vintage card sets, in an attempt to encompass the full history of Star Wars trading cards. The etched foil chase cards for instance are not just reminiscent of the Galaxy etched foil cards from the 90's. The image presented on the Heritage etched foil card actually can be combined with the Galaxy cards to form a single montage image.

The chase cards also bring back the Alphabet stickers from vintage ESB sets in the retail version of the Heritage set. And the more recent phenomena of original artist sketch cards and of character autograph cards (borrowed from the Clone Wars and Evolution card sets) are repeated here as well, and even in some ways improved. The sketch cards now cover the full realm of the Star Wars universe, not simply the Clone Wars cartoon series. The autographs, although quite rare, are for major characters from the original Trilogy films.