Ten years ago, I wrote an article for this site called “How the Hell Is This JPG of Han Solo Worth $225?” The article was about a new app from the card company Topps called Star Wars Card Trader in which fans could open packs and trade digital cards from a galaxy far, far away. At the time, it was novel and weird. This was before NFTs were a thing. Before most people had even heard of crypto. The idea that someone would spend $225 to own an image of Han Solo they could simply look at anywhere was still quite foreign and people were fascinated.
I know that for a fact because, in the years since that article, literally dozens of people have told me they read it and got hooked on Star Wars Card Trader. When I hear that, I usually apologize because I know just how deep that obsession can go. I not only remain hooked on the app in 2025, but I’m in as deep as ever. You see, Star Wars Card Trader is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year, and in addition to bringing back all manner of old-school cards, that aforementioned JPG of Han Solo sold for $120 just this week. Clearly, this thing is still going strong, except maybe not quite as strong. So what’s been happening?
Like many apps you have on your phone, Star Wars Card Trader can be used in two ways. You can use the free currency to buy packs and collect cards casually, or you can spend money to gain access to packs with better and rarer cards. When I started back in 2015, I was a free guy. I wasn’t going to spend real money for a digital card I didn’t actually own. And that mindset is why, around 2018, I stopped playing. All of the coolest cards were only available if you spent money and it just didn’t interest me. I was out.
Fast-forward two years. An email from Topps rekindled my interest and, like many people during the pandemic, I fell back into collecting hard. I quickly decided to focus my collection on my favorite things in Star Wars: Han Solo in Hoth gear and Han Solo in Carbonite—and looking at what was released in the years I was away, I realized I missed a lot. In that time, Topps had introduced cards called “Gilded” which had a gold, silver, or bronze border and were only available in card counts of one, two, or three. Other variants had similarly low counts, meaning there were Han Solo (and every single other character) cards only one or two people in the world could own. This, as a collector, was incredibly enticing.
Like with any kind of collecting though, that kind of level of rarity means one thing: money. And that’s when my whole perspective changed. Once I started spending money and acquiring newer, rarer cards, it was like finding a wormhole into a new world. I quickly found there were high-end players on the app who spent A LOT on the game. And not just $225 on a single card. I’m talking thousands of dollars on individual cards and maybe tens of thousands on in-app currency. That was literally the only way they could have amassed some of the rare, impressive collections they had… and I wanted some of that for myself.
But how to get it? Well, money of course. But also, the help of something that had slowly developed over the years: a passionate fan base. When I returned to the app, I found a growing, bustling community of collectors I could interact with off the app, about the app. Facebook and Discord became must-visit places in order to talk with other users about new cards, evaluate trades, and gain encouragement when it came to achieving a big goal. Without the help of the Star Wars Card Trader online community, I wouldn’t have fallen back in so deep.
Best of all, it all worked. In the past five years since returning to the app, I can safely say I have probably the best Han Solo, and definitely the best Hoth Han and Carbonite Han, digital card collection in the entire world. Did it cost me thousands of dollars over the years to acquire it? Yes. Did it also require me to be diplomatic, persuasive, and sometimes even investigative to find users and cards that seemed otherwise unattainable? Also yes. That drive to collect cards of my favorite characters is largely why I have remained so invested while so many others have slipped off.
And make no mistake, there has been a slip-off. As things stand, the app is not what it was at the beginning nor is it even what it was during the pandemic. The team behind the app, who were once available and engaged with the fan base, has disappeared. Some sets are incredible and beautiful, while others are lazy and ugly. Big-money spenders have inflated values out of range for most and tricked casual users into believing their cards are worth more than they actually are. The whole thing has become a crapshoot, and many of the app’s biggest fans who I met online have long since cashed out.
And yet, that iconic Han Solo card has only dipped slightly: $225 in 2015, $120 today.
Part of that is probably because Topps has, for the anniversary, gone back to basics. It’s reintroduced the original sets that fans loved at the very beginning. That includes “Vintage,” the series the Han Solo was a part of. Now though, it’s in multiple variants (see above) and some are even rarer. And, because of those multiple variants, “Vintage” cards have been selling out in minutes on a Saturday morning when they go live on the app. It’s created a nice blend of nostalgia for what the app once was, mixed with the more pointed and rare collectibles that have become most people’s focus.
Ten years later, not only has the idea of collecting a digital card become a bit more normalized, but doing it in Star Wars is still as fun as ever. At least for me. There have been peaks, valleys, and plenty of embarrassing moments I’d rather not discuss where I’ve spent more money than I care to admit, but I really love my Star Wars card collection. And, unlike most collections, this one comes with me wherever I go. It’s on my phone and I can mess with it anytime I want to.
Star Wars Card Trader is still available in all the app stores. Download it and check it out but be warned. It can be addictive. And if you’re hoarding 2025 cards, send me Millennium Falcon. I’m DarthGerm.
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