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The world’s largest collection of Star Wars memorabilia is officially one for the record books, and it belongs to a former journalist who once worked for Lucasfilm.
For the first time in its 58-year history, Guinness World Records has included the category in its latest book, which was released Thursday.
The collection consists of roughly 300,000 toys, pinball machines, action figures and other Star Wars-related stuff, though only about a third of the collection has been audited. Nonetheless, it was enough, by far, to call the collection, owned by Steve Sansweet, the biggest in the world.
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Sansweet began to seriously ramp up his collection of Star Wars paraphernalia in 1996 after retiring from the Wall Street Journal and taking a job as director of specialty marketing at Lucasfilm, the company founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas. Sansweet was later director of content management and head of fan relations before retiring from Lucasfilm in 2010.
Sansweet, 68, has also authored 16 books on the subject of the film franchise, including last year’s Star Wars: The Ultimate Action Figure Collection.
Sansweet displays his collection at a nonprofit museum he runs in Petaluma, Calif., called Rancho Obi-Wan.
On Thursday, to mark the occasion of the release of the Guinness World Records 2014 book, Guinness posted at its U.S. website seven videos of record-holders showing off their wares, and Sansweet and his Star Wars collection was one of them.
E-mail: Paul.Bond@THR.com
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