You are now entering the Protocol-osseum!

by Bill Cable
on 2017-12-13, 08:25:13

Hello friends and fellow collectors! It's been almost 6 months since a catastrophic plumbing failure prompted extensive renovations to my master bathroom and took a big chunk out of the closet in my Star Wars collection room. At long last I'm ready to share photos of the room in its final form. So join me in an exhaustive tour of the Protocol-osseum.

I've been wanting to name my collection room for ages, ever since being inspired by The Bobacabana and The Sithsonian. But coming up with a cool pun for C-3PO is hard. Everything I could imagine was awful. So I gave up. It was my visit over the summer to The GuggenHan, Ross Barr's Han Solo focus collection, that motivated me to redouble my efforts! And after much brainstorming, something finally came to me. 3PO's name was a non-starter. But what of his species? Protocol Droid + The Colosseum = Protocolosseum!

But then I was worried... would people get confused and think I was pimping out a Star Wars prototype collection, reading it as PROTOcolosseum? That's when C-3PO's own name inspired me... let's add a hyphen! Then it'll be clear that I'm saying protocol... osseum! And so it was settled, and my collection room was christened.

Now get ready to experience NINETY-SIX different photos of the collection, as we enter the Protocol-osseum!

The first thing you'll encounter are four bookshelves, three of them full-height, and one of them half. The three tall ones are primarily for 3PO stuff. The half-shelf I use do display my modern figures, most of which are in two dioramas

Taking a closer look at the one full-width bookshelf among the three tall ones, you'll find some great stuff! I have my assortment of loose Vintage variants (including Takara, Poch, Ledy, and Glasslite). You'll see my Japanese Vintage items (including a carded Zecta). There's a smattering of Vintage bootlegs. You'll see a couple Micro 4-Ups. And you'll see my Glasslite pitch-piece and Droids hand-painted internal first shot. On the bottom shelf I have some 12-incers, including an unassembled first shot, a chrome tester, and my legendary "prototype" Droids-style figure.

When you turn around you'll see my main wall of 3PO MOCs, along with the new shelves I just hung after completing bathroom renovations. All the stuff to the right of the divider is new construction.

The new wall shelves now are home to my Droids and Ewoks MOC runs, along with my miscarded 3PO collection and on the bottom shelf are a some of the first Vintage figures I ever purchased (before I even knew I was going for a Tri-logo focus!)

To the left of that are my MOC 3POs. The top three shelves are US Kenner MOCs (except for the Basa cardback... which is technically Peruvian but is a production US Kenner cardback). The next two shelves are foreign MOCs. And the bottom shelf is my proof card run (along with a couple MOC Glasslites).

Just around the corner is the super sweet stuff! My authentic Polish Star Wars movie poster, and just a few Cromalins...

Phew... and we're only half-way done! On the other side of that wall is my Vintage loose set. I built those shelves myself.

And next to that is another bookshelf, mostly with odds and ends. A Vintage Creature Cantina with my only remaining childhood figures. My run of PSWCS.org charity medallions (They make a great stocking stuffer!). My loose Droids and Ewoks. Some ICE swag. Et cetera...

In the center of the room, atop two back-to-back half-height bookshelves is a small eclectic mix of stuff. I have my Tamashii Nations C-3PO Perfect Model Chogokin figure, my sponsored Star Tots 3PO prototypes, and a bunch of the patches I've worked on that I need to properly sort and put in an album. The endcap to those shelves is a display rack I designed and my father built from leftover wood Billy bookcase shelves (I had a lot since I switched everything over to glass shelves). On those shelves are my Droids-style custom figures. Hand-drawn by me, colored in Photoshop, and then assembled by me. Beloved by thousands... er, hundreds... eh, dozens of collectors around the world!

Along the back wall I display my collection of all 96 Vintage MOC movie figures. All 21 original Star Wars characters are on Star Wars cards. Boba Fett and all Empire Strikes Back characters are on ESB cards. And all the Return of the Jedi and Power of the Force characters are on Tri-logo cards. Except for, tragically, General Madine. He's on a Palitoy multi-lingual card.

Below the MOCs is mostly my collection of Star Wars Celebration Collecting Track gifts. Amazing stuff. I should do something better with it...

And we're finally in the home stretch! The back side of the bookshelves you see when you enter the room contains my "miscellaneous" C-3PO items. On one shelf I have all my modern pre-production first shots, hard copies, etc. Below that is a shelf of all food promos. And everything else is pretty much chaos... shove whatever I can wherever I can. There are pockets of themes but for the most part it's haphazard. It's thousands of items all crammed together. This is madness!

As you turn around to leave, you'll find a couple items that are often hidden if the door isn't shut. The 3PO beach towel I have there because it covers the door handle, which bumps up against the edge of the leftmost bookcase. Plus it's a giant C-3PO beach towel! Hung on the wall is a Screamin' model proof sheet, from Chris Fawcett's big warehouse find many moons ago. It's gigantic.

Thus ends our tour of the Protocol-osseum. I hope you enjoyed it! Watch your step on the way out.