Rancho Obi-Wan

Rancho Obi-Wan is a Star Wars memorabilia museum unlike anything else. Housed in a large converted barn on a ranch north of Petaluma, it contains more than 500,000 Star Wars-related items — action figures, costumes, props, posters, toys, and merchandise from across the entire franchise going back to the first film in 1977. Guinness World Records has certified it as the largest privately held collection of Star Wars memorabilia in the world.

The museum is run by Steve Sansweet, who collected for decades and eventually turned his accumulation into a non-profit educational institution. Visits are by advance reservation only — guided tours run on a regular schedule, and the guides (including Sansweet himself on occasion) know the provenance of individual items in extraordinary detail. Even if you are not a Star Wars fan, the scale of the collection is staggering: the sheer quantity of merchandise the franchise generated over five decades is documented in physical form here more completely than anywhere else. Reservations fill up weeks in advance, especially at weekends.

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The collection was certified by Guinness World Records as the world's largest privately held Star Wars memorabilia collection, with more than 500,000 items. Owner Steve Sansweet began collecting Star Wars merchandise when the original film came out in 1977 and worked for Lucasfilm for years. The barn that houses the collection was converted to a museum around 2014 and is open to guided tours by advance reservation only.

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