I thought I would present here my collection, so far, of vintage French Star Wars advertisements and features.

These are all sourced specifically from PIF GADGET and PIF POCHE magazine circa 1977 - 1985.
They can be seen in Stéphane's excellent book "From Meccano to Trilogo" with the exception of a few extras I have included that Stéphane did not picture in the book.

For those who have not seen the book I hope you enjoy these French ads and features - often created with a very artistic or humourous spirit.

All of the ads and features are still attached to the original magazines.

I would class issues 595 and 759 of Pif Gadget, and 218 of Pif Poche as somewhat 'grail' items in terms of French advertisements due to their particular content.

I will update this thread with any new items I receive - but please feel free to add any of your own French advertisements and features




Issue 474. 1978. The first toy related ad from PIF gadget.




Issue 479. 1978.




Issue 558. 1979. Electronic R2D2. Note: another example of vintage SW toy packaging in bottom right of corner.




Issue 758. 1983. Figurine Panini ad (not pictured in 'From Meccano to Trilogo')




Issue 758. 1983. Luke Jedi. (not pictured in 'From Meccano to Trilogo')




Issue 758. 1983. Ad for forthcoming issue of Pif Poche featuring the rare examples of pictured SW toy packaging.




Issue 218 Pif Poche. 1983. Rare example of vintage packaging and a wider format photo than issue 758 PG - showing extra moc and according to Stéphane's book "It's the only known vintage document that proves the existance of Meccano carded ROTJ Luke, Leia and Tusken raider".




Issue 737. 1983. Sweepstakes and Prize offers.




Issue 737. 1983. Sweepstakes and prize offers.




Issue 769. 1983. Scout walker.




Issue 794. 1984. Mini Rigs.



Issue 795. 1984. Mini Rigs.




Issue 792. 1984. Speeder Bike.




Issue 595. 1980. ESB special issue cover.




Issue 595. 1980. Ad showing various range available.




Issue 595. 1980. Small sweepstakes ad (not pictured in 'From Meccano to Trilogo').

Some great adverts Paul! Keep them coming

Uli

Class Thread Paul. Excellent pieces and echoing Uli: KEEP THEM COMING!

Those are all cool, Paul. I like the mini-rigs one where it looks like they are actually moving. And the Issue 595. 1980. Small sweepstakes ad has some killer art work. Can't wait to see some more of those.

This next one is a bit of a grail piece for me in terms of French vintage SW magazines:

Issue 759 ROTJ special with loads of vintage features, ads, sweepstakes and the hard-to-find 4-folding page ROTJ poster!

Cover:



Poster:



Features on reverse of poster:





Pif Mecanno Sweepstakes double page with cool weapons!



ROTJ movie ad:



LukeJedi ad:



Sweepstakes form:



Awesome to finally have this issue with the poster at last

Awesome mate thanks so much for sharing this! I love it now how do I find one?!

Congrats on landing it with the poster Paul. I'm so jealous now.

Artoo_Detour wrote:

ROTJ movie ad:

LOL! When I first saw this, it looked like Lando was the one holding up the lightsaber!

Seriously though, these are cool to see. I've never really been a fan of collecting vintage SW ads in the past, but I have to admit, these have shown me the light.

Awesome stuff guys!

Managed to get another great issue of Pif Gadget - Issue 450 - the very first Pif to mention Star Wars!

For me this was a bit of a surprise when I opened it. I was expecting to see only one page of SW related features - as pictured in Stéphane's Mecanno to Trilogo book - but instead was happy to find four pages!
These are pictures from issue 450 which was released in October 1977 the exact same month that the original Star Wars film was released in France - a good five months after the USA release! So, I think the artists/designers of this issue had very little to go on other than hearsay and some pre-released pictures - hence the 'very unusual' images of R2 and C3PO and Stormtroopers that you will see in the following pics.














Also included here is the poster offer ad from issue 818 which I also picked up




I estimate I'm about half-way there now with my run of Pif Gadgets.

Great update Paul its great you scored the PIF issue that first had SW in it! I have to say the R2 and C3PO drawings are very funky i guess its shows they didnt have much to go on that early on!

Jay

Very cool stuff Paul.

A nice ad from my collection, a german comic magazine (Fix & Foxi) (1981)

a mistake from Stephane's book:

the small scene from PIF issue 674

First off, welcome aboard skywalkerhu. If you want, theres a thread in vintage chat to introduce yourself in so we can learn a tad about you.

Second, that Fix and Foxi ad is killer. What issue did that come from?

chris!

thx!

first, I come from hungary, so we might have some language difficulties, but OK, I will give a try

second, when I was a little child, I was a Fix & Foxi and PIF collector
as I saw, the PIF ads arent new here, I have cca 20 pieces of them, 3 of them still in magazines (should I post them), they werent cut off from it
after that, I had 2 ads from Fix & Foxi, first of all, the one I posted here, and an other one, which has been lost
issue number? thats a good question! I would like to know it as well

Your English is great, so no worries on the language barrier. As for the other ads, post away if they haven't been added already. I'm sure Paul wouldn't mind you adding to this great thread. Theres also a thread for vintage magazines that contain SW articles and ads up that your more than welcome to contribute to. I'd like to see what you got.

OK then, an other great stuff from a PIF, my first ever Star Wars stuff!

skywalkerhu wrote:

OK then, an other great stuff from a PIF, my first ever Star Wars stuff!

Are you sure this poster came in a PIF magazine? I thought it was a in store / in package poster catalog...

Welcome on the boards btw

Uli

cool stuff. way to go on your first SW purchase.
Welcome to TIG.

Dan.

First of all welcome again Skywalkerhu to TIG

Please feel free, as Chris said, to add any advertisements here that aren't already featured, although I will please ask that they are French ads only as the title of the thread states Please check out the magazine threads too! And the paperwork section! Great threads

What issue of PIF is this picture from? At first it looks like similar scene to issue 608. But your one was the one that was used for catalogs and retailer magazines, as Uli said, but also some consumer ads too! So I am intrigued to discover the issue of this Pif?

skywalkerhu wrote:

OK then, an other great stuff from a PIF, my first ever Star Wars stuff!

skywalkerhu wrote:

a mistake from Stephane's book:

the small scene from PIF issue 674

ps...

Great spot! When you compare this picture to the one in the book there is quite a difference! Looks like the picture from issue 676 was used in mistake.

Idefix13 wrote:

skywalkerhu wrote:

OK then, an other great stuff from a PIF, my first ever Star Wars stuff!

Are you sure this poster came in a PIF magazine? I thought it was a in store / in package poster catalog...

Welcome on the boards btw

Uli

Yes, it was an in store/package catalog as well, but those old PIF Gadgets sometimes came together with a catalog. LEGO, matchbox, miscellaneous etc...
And once, with this poster! As far as i can remember, it was packed together with issue 653 or 654!
I should buy a sealed specimen from these ones

so, in my childhood I was a die hard PIF Gadget collector
my first issue was 639 back in 1981!
exactly in the right time on the right place, because the first "small scene" were published in 638, the second one in 640 and so on... (25 small scenes were published in every bi-weekly issues)
I loved them, they were my first ever SW experiences/memorabilien months before the hungarian movie release dates!
today I have almost all these old magazines, but unfortunately, cca. 25 years ago I cut off all my SW related pics from them and they are lost...
only one survived!!!
issue 646!
a real gem for me!
a magazine, complete with a "small scene" meccano advert!
some pics from it:

for luck, a week ago I met an other old PIF collector (here in hungary) who offered me old PIF-s to buy
naturally, almost all the SW ads were cut of from her specimens as well
it is very hard to find untouched PIF-s today
especially which contained SW pictures, seems everybody cut them off
except this two issues which I bought


issue 660:






and issue 611:

after my "gems" here are some more meccano ads in "cut off" format
I have only the pics without the complete magazines
they have been bought from e-bay

issue 595:



issue 674:



issue 640 (in very bad shape):



issue 650:



issue 648:



issue 660:



issue 642:



issue 654:



issue 676:



issue 678:



issue 644:



issue 668:



issue 666:



issue 680:




issue 646: