Sell Star Wars on eBay! Make Millions!

8/27/09 R2-D2 Model Rocket, sold on eBay for $5.50

True confessions: the Downsizing Challenge is rooted in a thirty-year Star Wars collection. If you went back in time and convinced George Lucas that he should buy a McDonald's franchise rather than go into film making, you would substantially alter the course of my life. From age five through eleven, Star Wars dominated my life. Since then, it's only occupied about forty percent of my conscious thoughts.

Popular lore says that if you have old Star Wars toys, you can absolutely clean up on eBay. If that were true, my parents' garage has long been worth a lot more than their house. This summer, Mom declared it was time to clean my stuff out of that garage. Fair enough, Mom. I lugged it all out, and brought it back home.

Ever since we married, Joanna has been encouraging me to get rid of all this Star Wars memorabilia. Once it arrived on our doorstep, these encouragements became a bit more, shall we say, emphatic. To her credit, Joanna has willingly compromised, as I am not at all ready to get rid of most of the toys. They represent my childhood! And they're really cool!

Stop laughing.

Nonetheless, it was the act of bringing boxes and boxes of thirty-year-old toys into my house that made me realize I needed to do some serious downsizing. Thus, the 365-day adventure began. While most of what I've gotten rid of so far was not related to Star Wars, I have identified some of the old collection that I can stomach (barely!) letting go.

Such as this R2-D2 model rocket. It was given to me as a gift, but I was never into rockets and didn't even take it out of the packaging. And yet I've held onto it all these years. I may have a problem.

This rocket, I thought, will be a true eBay test case. It could be worth thousands! First of all, it has to be fairly rare. How many R2-D2 rockets have you ever seen? Secondly, it's still in its original package, with the pieces sealed in plastic. George Lucas, himself, is probably desperately trying to get his hands on one of these.

Or maybe not.

Tomorrow I shall put it in the mail to California, where (for the price of $5.50) it has found a new owner. Too bad someone closer didn't buy it, since I might have tried firing it up and rocketing it over to them.