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Greg's Remedy's Pharmacy houses an impressive collection of Star Wars collectibles. (CHAT News Photo/Colton McKee)
Mixing hobby and profession

Out-of-this-world Star Wars collection at local pharmacy

Feb 18, 2021 | 2:42 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – If you’re a Star Wars fan or a collectibles fan you don’t have to go to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away to find your fix.

Greg Bueckert, owner of Greg’s Remedy’s Pharmacy at the Mohawk Medical Arts Clinic, calls himself a collector extraordinaire. After a fortunate encounter with a fellow collector Bueckert found himself the proud owner of a large lot of Star Wars toys.

“I ended up with 140 pieces in pristine condition, had been stored, never opened, never played with or anything,” he says. “So being a collector as I am I purchased it I put into my drugstore here on display and for sale but mainly for people to look at as they wait for prescriptions.”

Bueckert says the display was a hit immediately, and people have bought handfuls of toys they tell him they’ve been looking for for years.

People have loved nabbing the hard-to-find and still-in-the-package items.

“We had several in the $200 and $300 range, they went almost immediately as soon as I put them out. As I say the idea is not to so much sell them as to have people look at them but there are the collectors that have come in and combed through them. And we still have people coming in on a daily basis and looking at them and putting them on their wish list I guess.”

Bueckert also has a wide selection of other antiques. There are local items from Medalta, Hycroft China, Alta Glass, Alberta Potteries and unusual things including an original mold from Redcliff Pressed Brick from around 1905.

There are also statues and figurines, radios, cameras, cigarette lighters, coins and more. He’s got so much inventory he’s started to fill and sell mystery boxes.

He says collectors are a strange breed they’ll drive hundreds of miles to get the piece they want and even on the chance the piece is there. He’s had people come from as far away as northern Alberta, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

Bueckert recalls one person finding a carpenter’s tool he’d spent 10 years looking for to give to his carpenter son.

Another time a woman and her elderly father spent close to an hour looking at and talking about what Bueckert had.

“The daughter came back after they left and thanked me profusely because he had Alzheimer’s and hadn’t talked to her in three years,” he says. “Seeing the items brought back the memories of his childhood and growing up with these items and he explained them all. I listened to them talk and it was as clear as day. And she was in tears that her father had finally spoken to her.”