Vintage Poster Variant - what's the story?

I found an old Scandecor poster from the 70s over the weekend. Have searched around for any info on it but came up with nothing so any guidance would be welcome. The poster is basically the one shown below but has the logo with the pointed "W" on it. Any background on the how and why of this would do my geeky curiosity a world of good!

[image=http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx20/cyberman66/SWposterStandardLogo.png]


[image=http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx20/cyberman66/SWposterVariantLogo.png]

 

I didn't come up with anything doing a quick scan of my books. Any more information on the poster - like where you got it, or name of the company that sold it?

 

The poster would have been bought in London in I guess 1977 or 78, definitely no later.

 

I found this on the SW Collectors Archive. No pic but I'm sure it's the same poster.

 

I reckon it is that basic poster too, but the description makes no reference to the very odd logo so I assumed it is referring to the standard version (as in the first pic I posted). Every photo of this poster that I can find has the normal logo too, the pointed W doesn't get a look in so far.

Normally these little variations in design of "Star Wars" merchandise are minutely analysed and meticulously recorded somewhere, so I'm a bit surprised that I can't turn up anything specific about it. If anyone does spot this variant out there please add a link here!

 

Part of the problem might be that the poster is Swedish. The bulk of items in my collecting books are ones that were obtainable in the US. My Star Wars Super Collectors Wishbooks (various editions) do include foreign items but most are still US.

 

Well thanks for looking into it even though it remains unsolved. I found that the text of "The Star Wars Poster Book" is searchable on amazon.com, so I searched and found that this poster is included there but again it is the regular logo version only with no mention of a variant at all (unless the online text is missing something, unfortunately I don't have a hard copy of the book).

A variant so rare no one has heard of it is cool I suppose, but I'm still curious about its backstory! Did the pointed W logo get used on much other merchandise? I remember that my copy of the novelisation had it back in '77 but nothing else springs to mind.

This may be wrong, but I'm just remembering about how Lucas held on to the rights for posters and the like, and planned to use them to help publicise the film on release. So this Scandecor deal may have been set up before the movie was even finished, and they were provided with the then-current logo. When the logo was revised later in production, the new one was passed on but maybe some posters had already been printed with the pointed W? If so, this poster could be one of the very earliest examples of "Star Wars" merchandising. Even the soundtrack album had the later logo and as far as I remember that album was pretty much all there was of "Star Wars" in the shops to start with!

 

Do you know if you got the poster in conjunction with a food or toy promotion? Maybe my books have it but it's in a different section.

 

As far as I remember (this was almost 35 years ago) it probably wasn't a toy tie-in because I don't think there were any "Star Wars" toys when I got this poster - hard to imagine for today's collectors I'm sure!

It would probably have been bought either from WHSmith (a big newsagent) on the High Street or maybe a poster shop like Athena. Possibly from a cinema foyer where "Star Wars" was showing, sometimes they would sell a few T-shirts and posters.