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Saturday, October 8, 2011

Icons Han Solo Blaster



The Han Solo blaster WAS in fact licensed. The Star Wars Insider magazine (LFL fan-club) was willing to sell it as an exclusive to try and help Icons. The piece was already tooled and ready for production. But it was not permitted to be manufactured or shipped. Icons had invested a ton of money into the tooling and it was ready to be produced. A total of 78 Han blasters were produced.

Only "3" APs were made at Icons in 1998-99. "1" went to LFL, "1" went to Steve Sansweet, "1" to Icons co-founder Mike Rogers.

An additional "75" Han APs were made at a new shop in 2000, owned by one of Icons co-founders / investors after the company closed its doors in March 2000, with original Icons parts, so that he could recoup financially.


"200" AP samples were supposed to be sent to LFL for Christmas 1998 but only a few were finished, with display case and numbered plaque (no packaging nor paperwork yet !!).


Note : I have heard that the goal of the aluminum grill in the background of the display case was to look like a piece of the Millenium Falcon.



Icons Han Solo Blaster Ad :

This ad shows the very rare Icons Han Solo blaster replica (which only a handful were made) and the Planet Of The Apes Gorilla Infantry Rifle (nothing was made but Icons acquired the license and had direct access to numerous originals. No drawings. The rifle was scheduled to be molded and was at Icons. The rifle pictured on "The Vault" was of a screen-used one).

The following are never before seen images of some of the original reference studies referred by Icons Fabrication & Design Group, which were referred to by during the research / machining phase of the Icons 1:1 scale Han Solo Blaster prop replica. The first ever produced under license by Lucasfilm Ltd.

These are blow-ups of photo-images of a screen-used blaster. The original images provided by Lucasfilm to Icons. At the time, the Han Solo blaster used on screen's whereabouts were unknown.

The notations were hand-written by Icons prototype fabrication artisans Mike Moore, Steve Horch or Brian Bero.






That one is a progress report, for Icons Han Solo blaster customers, explaining why the production of that replica was delayed !!


 

1 comment:

  1. Well i guess John can rest easy now he always held out hope for the ape rifle

    ReplyDelete