After another day of Star Wars news via Star Wars Celebration 2019, including the teaser for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and leaked footage of Jon Favreau’s November series The Mandalorian on YouTube, Topps, the trading card company, has rolled out the first tie-in product for Episode IX, but you’ll need to act quickly if you want to get it.

Topps is the company that first issued Star Wars trading cards in 1977, eventually to include five different series of cards showcasing scenes from the film, puzzles, behind the scenes images, concept art, marketing images, stickers, and bubble gum.  In case you missed it, take a look at our past coverage of the history of Topps and the Star Wars franchise via our reviews at borg of these Abrams books: The Original Topps Trading Card Series books for Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, plus Star Wars: Topps Classic Stickers, and Star Wars Galaxy.  We also looked at the great Rogue One Sketch Art Cards, The Force Awakens trading cards (similar to this set), and Mark Hamill′s creative autographs on Star Wars Topps trading cards across the years here.  Notably the first trading card series for Star Wars wasn’t issued by Topps at all, but via a Wonder Bread premium–a small set of 16 cards, available in marked loaves of the bread and via mail request.

A must for Topps Star Wars trading card collector completists, the first series for the final entry in the nine episodic Star Wars films is here: The Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer Set is the first look at the last installment of the Skywalker saga via Topps cards, and it includes ten cards featuring images from the film’s teaser trailer.  Collectors of Topps’ 1977 series will notice the homage design to that series on both the front and reverse of the cards.

In the past, limited introductory sets like this were offered in various ways, including giveaways inside the bimonthly Non-Sport Update trading card magazine.  Some of these early cards for Star Wars and dozens of other Topps and competitor trading card company series have become sought-after by collectors, and others are viewed to be no more valuable than regular issue cards.

Above and below are the images for the designs in this new set according to the Topps website:

You can only order The Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer Set until 4 p.m. Central time, Friday, April 19, 2019.  It’s priced at $9.99 plus shipping.  Get the details at the Topps website here.  If Topps releases its Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker tie-in sets as with the past four movies in the franchise, expect a staggered series of cards for the film to be offered later this year and more following the film’s release this December.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
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