A long-lost prop from the original 1977 Star Wars film has sold in an auction for a record-breaking US$3.135m.
The prop, a 20-inch model of an X-Wing starfighter that was used in the climactic battle sequence of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, had been considered missing for decades before it was discovered in a cardboard box in the garage of the Oscar-nominated model-maker Greg Jein. Jein died in May last year at the age of 76.
On Sunday the X-Wing became the “most expensive Star Wars screen-used prop sold at auction”, according to a statement from Joe Maddalena, an executive vice-president at Heritage Auctions, who facilitated the sale.
The auction also included a vast array of other film artefacts from Jein’s collection, including an original Stormtrooper costume from A New Hope, an astronaut suit from 2001: A Space Odyssey and miniatures from Battlestar Galactica.
“The worldwide response to the Greg Jein collections been outstanding,” Maddalena’s statement continued. “A true testament to Greg and all he accomplished as visual effects artist and collector.”
Built by George Lucas’s visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic, the model was used in the final battle of A New Hope, including the famous trench run. It is one of just four known “hero” models that were built for closeup shots, featuring detail including articulating wings, working lights and battle scars.
The model stood in for the X-Wings known as Red Leader, Red Two and Red Five, the latter flown by Luke Skywalker.
“This model has not been displayed or modified since it left ILM,” a visual effects historian, Gene Kozicki, told the Hollywood Reporter, describing the prop as a “white whale”.
The historian discovered the model in Jein’s garage while working with several industry colleagues to help Jein’s family organise his collection. When they saw the prop, he said, “the four of us knew immediately that it was the actual filming model and then the magnitude of the discovery started to set in”.
Kozicki said it was unknown how the X-Wing had become part of Jein’s collection, though he speculated Jein may have obtained it while working on Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which shared a significant portion of its visual effects team with the original Star Wars.
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