16mm reduction prints in the 90's were fairly common at least i think for film conventions. comic book conventions and so on.
Many of them were rented out by film archives and i'm not sure more than a few ever made it into fans hands.
I have no contacts inside of lucasfilm and i am not aware if they rented out 16mm dupes off of the 35mm prints to conventions in the 90's.
Whether these were illegal or legal copies remains to be seen.
I only know of Derran Films prints that is probably what the 90's copies were.
Derran films were only 8mm as far as i know however so were the cineavision prints. so i am still baffled as to what 16mm prints being sold out there are.
I find it funny you can still rent copies of the documentaries on film but not the original cuts of the movies since lucasfilm does not want them to be seen.
speaking of I.P.'s of the original negatives. what i.p was used for the 70mm film cel collectibles for the original trilogy and why is not this a viable source for an anamorphic video transfer?