The inaugural Star Wars Series 1 trading card collection by Topps, released in June of 1977, marked the debut of Star Wars themed cards from The Topps Company, Inc.. This initial set drew its content from Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope](/article/star_wars:_episode_iv_a_new_hope), presenting film stills, promotional shots, and behind-the-scenes glimpses, all framed by a blue starfield design. The card backs offered either "Story Summary" or "Movie Facts," or formed parts of a larger composite image like a jigsaw. Assembled together, these cards created two distinct pictures. One depicted Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, Han Solo, and Obi-Wan Kenobi within the Millennium Falcon, a scene from the movie. The other was Augie Napoli's rendition of the Hildebrandt Brother's poster for A New Hope. The set also incorporated a selection of sticker cards. It was succeeded by 1977 Topps Star Wars Series 2.
Leading up to the premiere of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, Marc Pevers, an executive at 20th Century Fox, approached The Topps Company with a proposal to produce a series of trading cards as a promotional tool for the film. Initially, Topps employees were hesitant about the idea, but eventually, Topps president Arthur Shorin became receptive to it, and company representative Dave Friedman informed Fox of Topps' interest in acquiring the license for Star Wars.
The images featured on the cards were sourced from 35mm slides. The blue starfield backgrounds were directly borrowed from their Star Trek card sets, with the sole alteration being the substitution of an image of the USS Enterprise with a depiction of an X-wing starfighter. The set's sixty-six cards showcased stills, promotional shots, and behind-the-scenes images from the original trilogy film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. In addition, eleven sticker cards were created to complement the main set. Art director Ben Solomon deliberately chose a green background for card 64, entitled "Governor of Imperial Outlands," to emphasize the head of Grand Moff Tarkin.
The card backs included either "Story Summary" or "Movie Facts" sections, offering lore and behind-the-scenes details, respectively. Some card backs contained portions of a larger image that could be assembled with other cards to form a puzzle. When put together, the cards created two distinct images. One depicted a scene from the film featuring farm boy Luke Skywalker, smugglers Chewbacca and Han Solo, and Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi in the cockpit of Solo's ship, the Millennium Falcon. The other was Augie Napoli's rendition of the Hildebrandt Brother's poster for A New Hope. The cards were then shipped to Topps headquarters in Brooklyn, New York City for release in June of 1977.
Card number 2, "See-Threepio and Artoo-Detoo," was initially intended to feature only C-3PO. However, following a disagreement with Ben Solomon, both droids were included. The caption of card 53, titled "Battle in outer space!", pays tribute to the 1959 Japanese sci-fi film, Battle in Outer Space. In story summary 3 on the back of card 17 "Lord Vader threatens Princess Leia!," C-3PO is misspelled as "3-CPO." Card 7, titled "The villainous Darth Vader," features an image from a deleted scene with Darth Vader and Moradmin Bast. Card 20, titled "Hunted by the Sandpeoples!," erroneously claims that Tusken Raiders hunted humans. In card 64, Grand Moff Tarkin is identified as the "Governor of the Imperial Outlands." The "Imperial Outlands" mentioned would later become known as the Outer Rim Territories. Several cards incorrectly refer to the Lars homestead as a control room.
The set's success led to the release of 1977 Topps Star Wars Series 2 alongside the original. In 2015, Topps re-released the 1977 Topps Star Wars Series 1 Remastered Edition on their digital application Star Wars: Card Trader. From June 8 to August 12, the cards were made available at a rate of one per day. The cards were showcased and discussed in the collection art book Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series, Volume One, authored by Gary Gerani and published by Abrams Books on November 17, 2015.