| This "change notice" is a piece of internal Kenner paperwork related to one of the most familiar of Star Wars action figure accessories, the non-telescoping version of the slide-out lightsaber, which came packaged with Darth Vader, Ben Kenobi, and the original version of Luke Skywalker. It reveals that the original "double-telescoping" version of the part was ditched and replaced with a simpler one-piece model due to "molding problems" encountered during mass production.
If you look closely at the notations you'll see that two old "DWG's" -- which I believe is short for engineering "drawings" -- are being replaced with a new one, which, presumably, would closely resemble the diagram you see on this piece of paper. Of course, the original saber design would have necessitated two separate engineering drawings and two separate part numbers.
You'll also note that, on the left side of the sheet, the three colors of nylon in which the sabers were to be injection-molded are specified: there's orange (Vader), yellow (Luke), and light blue (Ben). The PMS codes refer to the Pantone Matching System, which allowed for super-accurate color selection. However, I don't believe those are standard PMS codes. The "K" prefix might indicate they were using a system that Pantone maintained for Kenner specifically.
One of the nice things about this piece is that it allows us to date the occurrence of the saber change-over: It was finalized on November 30, 1977. Of course, that's before the figures hit store shelves. Carded versions of the double-telescoping figures exist because, by that time, Kenner's vendors had already produced thousands of the two-piece part, and they packaged them with production figures up until the time they ran out.
The story of how collector Ross Cuddie unearthed this piece of paperwork and a few others of near equal significance is an Archive entry in and of itself. Here's Ross' version of the tale:
Back in the mid 2000's I was spending roughly 2-3 hours a night searching through ebay for truly miscellaneous items. This was before, or before I knew about, ebay saved searches. :( I had recently started to look for old Toy Fair dealer catalogs, and Prequel trailer reels and it was one of those searches that brought me to the result with the following header:
StarWars Vintage Catalog;trailers;blueprints; & more
Pretty innocuous and I was expecting to see one of a variety of insert catalogs and the ever abundant blueprint set. The auction picture showed a large lot of miscellaneous "crap" including a KFC unused chicken bucket, multiple Prequel fast food premiums, several vintage Burger King ESB glasses, modern cards, small promotional posters etc.. The picture did show a small film reel, but what caught my eye was that this auction contained the 1978 Toy Fair catalog which is the first big Star Wars catalog of its type, and the base for any Toy Fair catalog collection. I don't recall seeing the blueprint set I was expecting but the picture was not the greatest showing more or less everything in one large pile.
It was a 7 day auction starting at $100 and I believe I just placed a bid of $100 right away or at least a couple of days later. I watched as it stayed the same right through to the auction end. Shipping was $35, yikes!
A couple of weeks later a large box, really just able to get my arms around it, arrived. It rattled with the sound of broken glass and miscellaneous "crap". Upon opening the box, pretty much everything that was pictured in the auction was just thrown in haphazardly. The Burger King glasses were inside the KFC bucket and a couple of them had shattered and glass splinters were everywhere. Luckily the one glass I later found out I needed to complete my set had not been broken or severely scratched, score!!
Once everything was removed, cleaned and sorted I had a nice pile of, well "crap". The trailer was there, and the catalog was there not ripped or shredded so for $135 I thought that was a fair price. I noticed an old manila folder stuck in the catalog. It had that nice musty smell and feel that only old paper can have, like a great silver age comic book. Inside were numerous sheet of paper of what looked to be blueprints. These blueprints included descriptions of the original "sabre", vinyl Jawa cape, packing assortments for boxes and other sundry details. Also included were some early project sheets which mentioned what seemed like everything Kenner was producing or thinking about producing at the time, including a "mini Tarkin" figure. All of the documentation was dated in late fall 1977. Neat!
I don't think it really dawned on me the significance of what I had found. I knew it was very early Kenner documentation, but I had never heard or seen anything like it before. I was not into preproduction collecting at this time, but certainly I was aware of such items having regularly scoured toysrgus.com (the first web site I ever visited) and the SWCA, and heard presentations at C1-2-3. I was still just a lurker on various forums including RebelScum. I pretty much sat on the paperwork for the next year.
C4 in May 2007, I showed this paperwork to John Kellerman in the exhibitor hall and he recommended I show it to the "collector guys who ran the collector panels". He did not really say much more other than it looked legit and significant. Of course I was aware of most of the more established collectors and aficionados. I approached Todd Chamberlain about bringing my documentation to the collecting road show segment to which he readily agreed.
The sheets I had found a year earlier were presented and generated a lot of interest. I found out that someone had been shopping them around a few years earlier for an ungodly sum in the neighborhood of $25000, which was promptly ignored by the community. Shortly afterwards the seller and sheets disappeared into oblivion until I brought them to C4. Todd and ChrisG had even mentioned how they saw the auction I won and wondered why they had not placed a bid, if at least for the '78 catalog. :)
This was a pivotal point in my collecting phase, being also my collecting coming out sort of speak. It was following C4 that I became feverishly interested in the history of Kenner Star Wars and preproduction and what would become what is now my main interest.
These pieces will always hold great value in my collection as they are not only significant in and of thier own right, but represent 1000's of hours of mundane ebay searching, and one large moment of extreme luck. I have looked upon other collections with envy, and happiness in that so much has found great homes where they are respected and shared with the community at large. I shudder to think what could have happened to this documentation and hope to curate them for the community with as much respect.
I\'m happy to say I was one of the collectors to whom Ross showed the paperwork at Celebration, and I think it's fair to say we all flipped when he pulled it out of the Priority Mail envelope he had it stored in. We knew it was legit when we recognized the familiar names of former employees scrawled in the sign-off areas. Here's a snap I took of Ross right after we looked through the material.
Much respect to Ross for making this incredible find and for sharing it. | 
