How I Captured Darth Vader

Written on 9-9-26.

I am at the Montessori school in Durango waiting to go to a cardiologist appointment after a shift.  I had an echocardiogram recently, so I am going to follow up on that.

Belinda went to Albuquerque to watch Rowan yesterday. She and Amanda worked together, and the pictures I saw really reflected how much fun they were having.  She plans on coming home this afternoon.

I got an estimate for installing our new heavily discounted gas fireplace (60% off) yesterday from Ashes Away.  We are going to hire them, and we should have it installed by the end of this month.  That will be great before the...

really cold weather comes.  This year is supposed to be a Super El Niño.

I wanted to write about that new signed Star Wars card I obtained from the new comic book store here in Aztec.  The very first day I went there, he showed me a Series 1, blue, Darth Vader “rookie card” signed by…Hayden Christensen.  The card was authenticated by Beckett, and it got an auto 10.  The card was graded as a 6.5.  He was asking $425.00 for it.

He helped me authenticate my own Star Wars card with a Dave Prowse signature.  It was a Series 3, yellow card #142, “Darth Vader inspects the throttled ship.”

I got stuck, and he was the one who helped me get over the hump.  It was so simple; he had me search for David Prowse instead of Dave Prowse.  Who knew?  He did.  

When I got it back, I brought it to show him how it turned out and to thank him again.  He still had the Hayden Christensen signature card, and I thought it would be amazing to own both.  I asked him if he would take trade-ins for it, and he said yes, but it would depend on what I would offer.

I watched a recent video that said Darth Vader cards are on the rise as far as value, so I planned on taking some of my collection to him.  Then I saw he was open on Mondays (normally, he wasn’t), so I went into my crawl space immediately to see what I could trade.

He agreed to trade for a replica stormtrooper helmet I wore once for Halloween, a Power of the Jedi 12” inch Luke Skywalker on a speeder bike, two PSA graded cards (Boba Fett and Lando), both 4’s, and a MicroMachine transforming Yoda playset.  He liked the playset the most, and he wanted more, but I wasn’t willing to trade those.  The one I brought was a duplicate.

He took all of that for $200.00, discounted it $25.00, and then I paid him $200.00 for the rest.  I got it!  He told me someone online was really hounding him for it, so I was fortunate to snag it.  I am so glad I did.