What eBay Hath Wrought 82: Getting a Little Carrie'd Away with Star Wars

Here is a card that I have been wanting to get for quite some time, a Carrie Fisher autograph from a Topps Star Wars product. I ordered a box of Jedi Legacy in my ill-advised Memorial Day shopping spree at Dave & Adam's Card World and I pulled an autograph, but it was an autograph of Garrick Hagon as Biggs Darklighter. Autographs are like a 1:3 boxes hit, so it was still pretty lucky to even hit an auto in my box, but it wasn't from one of the bigger names in the movies. So I sought out this autographed Princess Leia card on eBay.

This card maybe has a couple of flaws, but I am okay with that at the moment. There is a bit of lint or fuzz stuck on the left side of the autograph sticker. I could probably remove it with some care, but I am not going to attempt that right now. The autograph also has a little bit of trouble with the merging between Fisher's first and last names. I think she ran out of sticker and had to struggle to fit the whole thing on there. But it doesn't run off the edges of the sticker as much as other ones I've seen online, and really the cramming in the center is present on most of her sticker autos.

I don't want that last paragraph to make it sound like I am disappointed with this card, because I'm not. It meets all of the criteria I set out when I started shopping around, and I got it for quite a bit less than previous copies have sold for. The new hot Star Wars product is Topps Star Wars Chrome Perspectives, and Fisher's autographs from that set are probably overshadowing the autographs from last year's Jedi Legacy. They are from a Chrome product and are also on-card rather than sticker autos, so they command two or three times what the Jedi Legacy cards are selling for. The base Chrome autos of Fisher have been selling in the $400-650 range, while the Jedi Legacy cards in the recent past are selling in the $200-300 range. I got mine for just under $200 shipped, which is admittedly pretty big bucks for a single card, but it's a good centerpiece for my small Star Wars card collection.

I also grabbed this 1983 sticker card for a couple of dollars in another eBay transaction. The back of the card appears to be part of some puzzle picture. I'd have to say that Leia is my favorite Star Wars character, although Chewbacca, Yoda, and the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO are up there, too. I especially can identify with C-3PO's fatalistic attitude and dry sense of humor, but Leia is my favorite of the 'Big 3' heroes. Han Solo is okay, but he is pretty full of himself and I get a little tired of that. Luke Skywalker is a whiny little goofball. He's like Harry Potter, all conflicted and angsty. Leia is confident and competent, and every time she gets 'rescued' it seems like she has to do most of the work, like getting out of the cell block and choking the slime out of Jabba with her chains. She's definitely cute, but a lot of that comes from her confidence and the fact that she's a certifiable badass.