TheExiledJedi

On 1 January 2025, I owned zero lightsabers. By 1 January 2026, that had grown to a collection of over 110 high-end pieces — with another 20 inbound, awaiting installation and customisation.

Here is where I tell all my tumultuous lightsaber collecting journey of beautiful products, a small handful of great people, artisans & craftsman, misfits & crooked & dimwit sellers & the inescapable & pervasive unworldly tight-nit culture of egocentricity.

Over the past twelve months, the full spectrum of dysfunction has been on display: falling and failing sales, terrible resale prices, predatory flippers, outright scammers, sellers who ship $500 hilts without basic bubble wrap, installers who defy basic engineering logic and major "brands" that are little more than sophisticated con artists. While Disney sells 10M lightsabers (China-made) annually, this high-end lightsaber segment struggles to sell 800-1000 per year.

This is a small community largely concentrated on Facebook — a mix of long-standing and newer brands/companies (that are small companies by any measure - if not one or two persons), veteran collectors (who are almost all out of the hobby), new hobbyists arriving regularly, part-time and freelance builders and installers and customizers ranging from highly skilled to decidedly not. Rival hostility runs deep, and there is no shortage of biased, agenda-ed couch observers quick to offer opinions with no skin in the game — never bought a saber, never been burned, yet discouraging victims from any attempts at justice or restitution, or scoping out all forums for drama and tension in order to give their 2 cents to flame any fires, so as to stay 'in the conversation'. Providing criticism of a saber practitioner? Any negative feedback is swiftly met with hostility and rebuttals from the accused, backed by their loyal posse of fellow buccaneers.

Thankfully, a rare few — honest collectors, skilled installers, and trustworthy sellers — have served as genuine guiding lights along the way.

Of the many things wrong with the current saber industry, it is this: there is an urgent need to professionalize the Industry: it Is the Price of Admission into a Higher Net-Worth Market.

You cannot procure a higher net-worth market without high-net-worth standards, from timely email and social media message response times, to honest, genuine, humble and transparent customer communications. Customers willing to fork out $500-2000 per installed, customized lightsaber will not tolerate the amateurish, risk-laden environment of the current lightsaber community.

To attract the customers necessary to save the high-end artisan tier, the industry must move up the value chain. This requires jettisoning the toxic communities highlighted here: theexiledjedi.com/ToxicCommunity, theexiledjedi.com/VoiceSinkingShip and abandoning the vendor-controlled Facebook groups in favour of rigorous professional standards and objective, independent collector viewpoints where there are no conflicts of interest.

This site is unaffiliated with any brand, dealer, seller, installer, or maker. I have never sold a lightsaber from my collection, and none are for sale now or in the foreseeable future. The furthest sales has taken me is to post 8 lightsabers online for 'sale' to obtain feedback on the pricing I paid for them. These 8 lightsabers remain with me embroiled in a legal dispute. This is my journey — read it, learn from it, and navigate this wild ride with open eyes.