"La French Touch" Collectors' Reference Book

Well, "Celebration Europe II" takes place this weekend in Essen, Germany, with tons of celebrity guests and cool stuff to see... and I won't be there :-(

HOWEVER! Even though I won't be in attendance, I wanted to bring a bit of European flavour to the blog, so I'm posting about Stephane Faucourt's new book, "La French Touch - History of French Star Wars Merchandising & Marketing 1977-1986".

I was privileged to assist Stephane with translation and copyediting the English version of his book. La French Touch covers everything you can imagine about Star Wars in France, from action figures and toys (of course) to newspaper and magazine coverage, product premiums, record albums and videos, costumes... you name it. All copiously illustrated in glorious full colour, naturally :-) 

Here, Yak Face points out his entry in the "Trilogo" section. The book covers all card style variations from the early square Meccano cardbacks all the way to the last Trilogo cards.

Lots of cool material and pictures of model kits...

Packaging variations for ships, beasts and playsets too.

Plenty of weird stuff to hold your interest - like these very strange ice-cream tie-in story ads.

Luke Stormtrooper found his cardback too! :-)

Stephane very kindly sent along inscribed English and French editions of his book, along with some other cool stuff for which I am very appreciative. The book has received some very good reviews on Rebelscum and other forums (from some prominent collectors too) and I join with them in applauding Stephane for his creative and thorough job in presenting the subject. I had a copy of the book sitting on the coffee table and even one of my non-collecting friends thought it was so cool he couldn't put it down!

If you're lucky enough to be in Essen for CE II this weekend, the book is available at Gus and Duncan's Completist Publications stand (#804). If not, you should order a copy direct from Stephane through his website at http://www.meccano2trilogo.com/