The 1977 Topps Star Wars #207 C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) Error card is probably the second most infamous card in the hobby (next to the 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken FF Error). But Topps felt the card was a bit too inappropriate and airbrushed the “appendage” out in a later printing of the green-bordered 4th series set.
For years, the official story had been that a piece of Anthony Daniels’ costume fell off as the picture was taken, but the rumor was always that a Topps artist snuck one in.
In 2007, the official site of Star Wars wrote, “It appears that the extra appendage is not the work of an artist, but rather a trick of timing and light. The untouched archive photo shows the image just as it appears on the card. The current theory is that at the exact instant the photo was snapped, a piece fell off the Threepio costume, and just happened to line up in such a way as to suggest a bawdy image. The original contact sheets from the photo-shoot attests to this. They are not retouched in any way, yet still contain the same image. Whatever the real explanation is, the ‘mischievous airbrush artist’ scenario simply doesn’t fit.”
Gary Gerani, in his book Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series: Volume One (2015), wrote that, apparently, someone on set strapped a long metallic appendage to the droid’s lower half. However, he said the team was releasing a new (unplanned) series of Star Wars cards as fast as possible (since the movie kept doing so well), no one noticed the gaff and the cards went out to the public in packs.
Despite Gerani’s explanation, in the fall of 2019, Anthony Daniels wrote about what happened in a little more detail. He said it was the oil bath’s fault. Daniels explained that the costume’s pants, at the time, were made of two pieces of thin plastic, front and back, that were attached with gold-colored tape. The oil dissolved the tape, and the pants came apart, leading to a bulging crease when he was lifted out of the bath. Daniels said Lucasfilm verified to him that an employee took the photo with the crease and accentuated it.
Now, no matter how the card made it to market, Topps is believed to have printed the airbrushed version in fewer numbers.
PSA’s population report isn’t the best guide in determining the print runs, though. An error card is worth grading in almost any condition, but that’s not necessarily true for airbrushed copies. Here’s a comparison of the card’s pop counts over the past two years.
Regardless, you can see that over 1,800 error cards exist in the pop report, while the corrected version has a total population of under 800. However, the error is much tougher to find with good centering or PSA 9/10 worthy condition. Only 5 PSA 10s of the error exist, while the correct version has 12 10s despite the smaller overall population. And despite doubling the total population, the 10s haven’t changed in two years.
Despite Gerani’s belief that the airbrushed version is the more valuable print because of its scarcity, the error generates a significant premium over the corrected version because demand for the error card is through the roof.
The last PSA 10 error sold for almost $5k in May 2020 (4 Sharp Corners may have sold a pair of errors on eBay for $3,338 and $2,247 in September and October 2023, but they’re in PSA’s APR under the regular version), while the previous corrected PSA 10 sold for $234 in July 2018. The last PSA 9 error sold for $2,645 in September 2024, and another sold for $1,580 in October 2022 (but around $600 in November 2020 before the hobby spike). The last corrected PSA 9 sold for $332 in June 2024 (but was as high as $400 in December 2021). PSA 8 errors have sold as recently as October 2024 for $600 compared to closer to $125 for the last corrected PSA 8 in September 2024.
Also, Daniels won’t sign the error card; if you see one, it’s probably fake. PSA shows he has signed 26 regular cards and one error (a few years ago, it showed 9, so that’s weird) in its PSA/DNA population report. A few have been listed on eBay for ~$650.
Beyond conventional singles, there are a few more interesting collectibles related to the C-3PO error for the master collector.
First, in its Fall 2018 auction, Robert Edwards Auctions sold an unissued blank-backed proof for $540.
Next, you can find uncut sheets with the error card. The following example has been listed on eBay for a little under $10k, but I’ve seen more recent examples for closer to $3k.
And finally, if you want to pull a C-3PO card from a pack, here are the unopened items you will need to get your hands on.
Two 4th Series BBCE Authenticated wax boxes sold on eBay a few years ago, one for $1426 in June 2022 and the other for $1795 in July 2022. REA sold eight boxes between the fall of 2021 and the spring of 2023, mostly for around $1,680.
PSA-graded wax packs are pretty common, as they have graded 400 of them (as of October 2024). The last PSA 7 pack sold for $63 in May 2024, while the last PSA 8 graded pack sold for $92.
Since the 330-card 1977 Topps Star Wars set has become much more popular in recent years as the hobby has boomed and as Disney has released new Star Wars movies and shows, the C-3PO error has grown (so to speak) even more popular and expensive, too. While we may not ever know, with 100% certainty, how the C-3PO error card came to be, it’s a card that might bring you a little chuckle. And if you’re a big Star Wars fan, boxes, packs, and uncut sheets make solid additions to a master collection. Happy collecting!