The 2009 San Diego Comic-Con Holo-Brick Archives Display
Three Printed Bricks. A Website Name. Two Stormtroopers. And Almost No Documentation.
The least-documented item from SDCC 2009 — and possibly from any SDCC LEGO year. Three pieces. No instructions. No confirmed packaging. A promotional display nameplate for a website that no longer exists, given away free at a convention sixteen years ago.
San Diego Comic-Con 2009 was an exceptional year for LEGO Star Wars exclusives. Six Collectible Display Sets distributed one per day. A BrickMaster double exclusive. And then this — COMCON011, the Holo-Brick Archives display, a three-piece printed brick assembly given away free at the LEGO booth. It is catalogued on BrickLink, listed on Brickset, and mentioned in almost no collector documentation. No photographs of it in context. No confirmed production quantity. No confirmed packaging. Just three white bricks with gray printed text, a website URL, and two Stormtroopers.
This collection holds examples — the physical descriptions documented here are drawn from firsthand examination.
The Context
In September 2009, LEGO launched the original Holo-Brick Archives — a database of every LEGO Star Wars set ever produced, hosted at StarWars.LEGO.com. The site was conceived and created by Sten Funder Lysdahl, LEGO.com’s content manager at the time, and launched in beta mode. It was maintained for less than a year before being mothballed, never achieving a complete catalog.
COMCON011 appears to have been produced to promote or commemorate the Holo-Brick Archives launch — a promotional item tied to the site, distributed at SDCC 2009 roughly two months before the site itself went live. Whether it was produced specifically for the convention or was part of a broader promotional run is not known. Brickipedia describes it as “presumably made to celebrate the debut of the Holobrick archives on the LEGO Star Wars website” — the word “presumably” reflecting that no official documentation of its purpose has ever been published.
The Build
COMCON011 is a three-piece assembled display nameplate. All three pieces are white with gray printed text. When assembled, the piece reads as a single display sign:
Top piece — a 1×8 tile printed with STARWARS.LEGO.COM in gray text. This sits across the top of the two plates below.
Left plate — a 4×6 plate with studs on three sides, printed with LEGO STAR WARS on the upper portion and HOLO- / ARCH below — the left half of the word HOLO-BRICK ARCHIVES split across the two plates.
Right plate — a matching 4×6 plate with studs on three sides, printed with BRICK / IVES — completing HOLO-BRICK ARCHIVES — and two Stormtroopers holding blasters.
Assembled, the full piece reads:
STARWARS.LEGO.COM
LEGO STAR WARS
HOLO-BRICK
ARCHIVES
The BrickLink part numbers for the three pieces are 4162pb026 (the 1×8 tile), 6180pb017L (the left 4×6 plate), and 6180pb017R (the right 4×6 plate). All three are white with gray printing, unique to this set.
The two 4×6 plates have studs on three sides rather than all four — the flat side faces forward when displayed, giving the assembled piece a clean front face. The 1×8 tile sits flush across the top.
The Distribution
COMCON011 was a free promotional giveaway at the LEGO booth at SDCC 2009, distributed between July 22 and July 26. Unlike COMCON010, which required winning a raffle and paying $50, COMCON011 was given away at no cost. No production quantity has been officially confirmed — the item does not appear in any LEGO press materials from the period.
The original packaging — if any — is undocumented. Whether it was distributed in a polybag, a box, an envelope, or loose has not been confirmed from any known source. The examples in this collection came without original packaging, though the absence of packaging on a secondary market example does not establish how it was originally distributed.
The Holo-Brick Archives
The original Holo-Brick Archives at StarWars.LEGO.com was a short-lived but ambitious LEGO project — a timeline-based database of LEGO Star Wars sets navigable by year and by film or TV appearance. It launched in beta in September 2009, roughly six weeks after SDCC, and was maintained for less than a year before being retired without reaching a complete catalog.
The name was later adopted by Jeremy Beckett and Kevin Downard for their independently run LEGO Star Wars reference site — the current holobrickarchives.com — which has no official affiliation with LEGO but serves as the most comprehensive LEGO Star Wars collector reference currently active. The COMCON011 display predates that independent site by over a decade.
The URL printed on the tile — STARWARS.LEGO.COM — redirects today to the LEGO Star Wars product pages and no longer bears any connection to the original Holo-Brick Archives database.
Current Value
Brickset lists the current value at approximately $295 new and $495 used — an unusual inversion where used examples appear to command more than new. The most likely explanation is straightforward: with no confirmed original packaging, there is no meaningful distinction between a new and used example. Any example in circulation is essentially loose regardless of whether it has ever been assembled, making the “new” category effectively meaningless for this item. The item rarely appears for sale.
In This Collection
This collection holds more than one example — including a complete assembled set and additional individual pieces. The physical descriptions above are drawn from firsthand examination and represent the most detailed public documentation of COMCON011’s construction that exists.
What We Don’t Know
- Production quantity — no figure has ever been published. Unlike COMCON010 (500) and the Collectible Display Sets (300 or 1,250 each), COMCON011 has no confirmed edition size anywhere in the public record.
- Original packaging — polybag, envelope, box, or loose? No confirmed examples with original packaging have been publicly documented.
- Why SDCC specifically — the Holo-Brick Archives didn’t launch until September 2009, roughly six weeks after SDCC. Was COMCON011 a preview of the site, a tie-in to the broader 2009 LEGO Star Wars 10th anniversary campaign, or something else? No official explanation exists.
- Whether it was distributed beyond SDCC — could COMCON011 have been given away at other events or through other channels in 2009? No evidence of non-SDCC distribution exists but it has not been ruled out.
COMCON011-1 — Holo-Brick Archives (San Diego Comic-Con 2009 Exclusive)
BrickLink: comcon011-1
Distributed: July 22–26, 2009 | Event: San Diego Comic-Con International 2009
Price: Free giveaway
Pieces: 3 (1×8 printed tile + 2× 4×6 printed plates)
Quantity: Unknown
Current value: ~$295–$495
Status: Owned (multiple examples)
