Top 5 Star Wars Card Trader Cards for 2024

In 2020, I started ranking my favorite digital cards here on Seeking Positivity In The Galaxy.  At the conclusion of 2024, it is no different except that in 2025 we will be celebrating 10 years of Star Wars Card Trader.  I've shared the story before, but I will never forget where I was when I opened my first pack of digital cards.  I was at the Indiana Comic Con when my friends Dan Zehr (co-creator and host of Coffee with Kenobi) and Cory Club (co-creator Coffee with Kenobi) and I downloaded Star Wars Card trader and started collecting digital cards.  I have been hooked ever since.  Purchasing trading cards and finding storage for them has become difficult, so the digital collection has consumed me because of the little or no cost of creating a collection and having the collection with me wherever I go.  

To celebrate 10 years of SWCT, each month I will reveal my Top 5 award cards from each year.  I think it will be fun to go back and explore the award cards I have earned over the years.  I suspect I will have memories and stories of completing certain collections.  In January, I will start with my 2015 award card collection.  

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I suppose I should share with you my Top 5 favorite insert (common, uncommon, rare, super rare, Epic, and Iconic) cards of 2024.  These are cards that I actually own in my collection, so I may be missing some awesome cards that I simply don't have.  That is sad, but it is the reality of collecting; sometimes you get what you want, and sometimes you don't.  

I hope you enjoy my Top 5 SWCT insert cards: 

5.  Star Wars: The Phantom Menace 25th Anniversary - Watch Party, Darth Maul, Cards - Watch Party Uncommon, 24,237 Card Count

I have always enjoyed film commemorative cards and this card is no exception.  First, Darth Maul is one of my favorite Star Wars villains.  Put him on this nicely designed card and it is a winner!  There is a nice golden border around two sides with scenes from the film underlaid the golden color.  In the lower left corner is a 25th anniversary logo. and Darth Maul's name is printed on the red border below the image.  Flip the card around and the center of focus is an image of the Phantom Menace film poster.  This is a really sweet card, and I'd try to trade for a copy of this set.  

4. The Millennium Falcon, Rescuing the Resistance on Crait, Season 9 - Moments, Uncommon, 23,251 Card Count

Trading cards have always done a great job of highlighting people from baseball players to film
characters, but when a card highlights an item, I am always fascinated.  When the card features the Millennium Falcon, it brings the ship alive.  I chose the the card highlighting the rescue at Crait because of the dramatic nature of the image.  I can hear the Falcon swooping across the sky as it is being fired upon in this scene.  Whether you think the Falcon classifies as a character or simply a star ship, this card brings it alive.  

3. Merchant and Smuggler, Cad Bane, Series 2 - Wave 2 - Base - White, Uncommon, 17,506 Card Count

The Merchant and Smuggler sets are some of my all-time favorite sets.  I love the classic "old fashion" text font that titles the card, "Merchant & Smuggler: Purveyors of Fine Goods.  It is a great look.  Choosing this particular card with Cad Bane boils down to a great character with some wonderful detail in the card.  Bane's vest has a decorative detailed pattern and the armor on his arms and shoulders are detailed down to the wires and lights.  Also, don't miss his expression with his curved down scowl.  

2.  Topps Star Wars Masterwork, Grogu, Wave 1 - Commemorative Stamps - Chrome Silver, Super Rare, 2,260 Card Count

You didn't think I would do a Top 5 SWCT list without a card featuring Grogu, did you?  Of course not,
but the theme of this card caught my attention before I noted that Grogu was featured on one of the cards.  This card features a stamp of Grogu framed in the card.  The diagonal style in the upper right and lower left corners and the green/gold/orange striation in the background of this card are eye catching.  The card then also gives us a "bonus" image of Grogu on the card laid behind the stamp image and boarder.  There is also a gold title, Star Wars Masterwork," at the top of the card.  

1.  Rebels Box Set, Chopper Comforts Hera Syndulla, Series 1 - Base - White, Uncommon, 26,169 Card Count

I knew this card would be my top SWCT card of 2024 from the moment I collected it.  Besides being a
stunning card to look at, it connects me directly to the story and the emotion of this story.  As the title of the card states, "Chopper Comforts Hera Syndulla," this card is the scene where Hera seeks reflection of the most recent battle in which they lose her love, Kanan Jarrus.  Her close friend and partner, Chopper, joins her for the moment.  In a classic Star Wars moment, the two look off into a deep red sunset.  This is a touching moment and a dramatic card to collect in 2024.  

The Force Awakens: New and Old Generations

I never thought that in 1983 when I walked out of the theater after watching Return of the Jedi that 32 years later my world would be wrapped up in the Star Wars Universe, again.  Star Wars has been tugging at me over the last several years with the release of the prequel (interesting for the story, but left a little to be desired with acting and CGI animation heavy) films, the Clone Wars animated series (genius), and more recently the Rebels animated series (closing in on the genius of the Clone Wars).  But on Thanksgiving weekend of 2014, my world was turned upside down as The Force Awakens Episode VII teaser was released.  I couldn't believe my eyes that this was a reality.

Off to see The Force Awakens

Fast forward to December 2015.  I re-watched all six episodes, reviewed key Clone Wars episodes and watched episodes IV through VI a second time prior to The Force Awakens weekend.  I have watched every episode of Rebels several times, read all the new Marvel, canon, comics, read Star Wars Tarkin, A New Dawn, and Aftermath.  I attended the Indiana Comic Con to hear Carrie Fisher address the audience and hang on every word for any hint she might give in regards to The Force Awakens.  I attended the midnight opening of the Force Friday toy release.  I even hosted a Star Wars Reads Day event in October at work.  I also have had the pleasure and honor to meet and work with the co-hosts of the internationally known podcast, Coffee with Kenobi, Dan Zehr and Cory Clubb.   I have bathed in Star Wars building up to the December opening weekend of The Force Awakens.  My biggest fear was how could this movie possibly live up to the hype, the mythology, the modern day scrutiny, the hyper-media focused public eye and opinion?  I had massive anxiety as I drove to the theater.
But that is me.  The "old" generation of Star Wars fandom.  The believers of the force.  I grew up with the Millennium Falcon as my visual concept of what an awesome space ship would look like.  I grew up with the nightmare of what it would be to face Darth Vader and the empowering hope that even I, some nobody from a small town, could rise to face the evil in the world.  That there is a force that we can use for good or evil.  I am old-school, but I am not the only Star Wars fan any more.  I have a new generation of Star Wars fan in my own house (thanks to my persistence but I'm not sure if the hype of this film wouldn't have turned her to geekdom even if I hadn't).
My daughter, 8 years old, is the same age as I was when I first watched the rolling text and the Star Wars fanfare open the movie.  The only difference is I had the drum roll and 20th Century Fox logo and she has a Disney logo.  It has been so exciting for me to watch all the movies, Rebels and some of the Clone Wars episodes with her.  The questions she asks me are the same questions my friends and I would ask 30-some years ago: Is Vader really Luke's father?  Will they find Han Solo?  Who is this Jabba the Hutt guy?  Why don't 3-PO and R2 ever get shot when they cross the laser bolts?  Why can't a Stormtrooper ever actually hit someone?  What happened to Obi Wan's body when the lightsaber slashed through the robes?  Didn't Luke kill Vader in the cave?  Wait, what?  She asked them all.
What has been so fantastic is that this, The Force Awakens, is her Star Wars movie.  This time, we will both ask the questions together and we will discover the answers together too.  Rey, Finn, Poe and BB-8 are her heroes while mine are still Han, Leia, Chewie and Luke.  My villain was Vader;  hers is Kylo Ren.  She thinks her villain is so much cooler than mine, but I remind her that her villain worships mine.  Then I watch the eye roll...I am loving this. Like I said in the opening, I never thought 32 years later that I would be experiencing a new Star Wars with the same excitement, but I never thought that I would be sharing it with my own children.  I will share our experience of seeing the film soon in another post, but after seeing the movie, she asked, "How many more movies will there be, because I don't want this to end."  My response was there will be three movies over the next several years,  but how awesome would it be if after those three movies a whole new story started again when she is 45 like me.  After saying that, I saw my daughter look away in to the distance as if she was looking into a twin star sunset with her thoughts on the future, dreaming what that might be like to share this experience with her own children.  A dream for her, but it is my Star Wars reality.