Want to wear Han Solo's iconic Empire Strikes Back jacket? Or own Marty McFly's fluorescent hoverboard? How about attending a Halloween party in Edward Scissorhands's original costume?
On September 20, the Prop Store will sell more than 600 tangible memories to the highest bidders at its annual Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction.
The unique collection contains real props from 150 movies and worth over $4.6 million combined. The films include Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Lord of the Rings, The Goonies, Captain America, The Terminator, Catwoman and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
The auction's centerpiece, Han Solo's nearly 40-year-old jacket, worn by Harrison Ford in George Lucas's Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope (1977), is expected to fetch between $650,000 and $1.3 million.
Though costly, the jacket's price is justified by a successful screen match that proved its authenticity as the jacket Solo sported as he arrived on the planet Bespin. The jacket has been immortalized in Star Wars posters and on action figures.
Other Star Wars memorabilia up for sale are a stormtrooper helmet from A New Hope (1977) and Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker lightsaber from Revenge of the Sith (2005).
"After our record-breaking successes last year, we're incredibly excited to announce our fifth Entertainment Memorabilia Live auction in London and pleased to be partnering with the exceptional team at Odeon again," said Stephen Lane, Prop Store CEO. "Our auction on September 20, 2018, will once again raise the bar, presenting some of the most iconic cinematic artifacts of our time."
The Prop Store, one of the world's largest film and television memorabilia companies, was founded by Lane, a passionate prop collector, in 1998. Since then, the company has expanded to employ 55 staff working in Los Angeles and London to source, authenticate, archive and sell original film props.
"We've grown. When I first started Prop Store it was just myself and my wife," Lane told Newsweek. "When I started the business, I really just thought it would be us doing it, having a bit of fun, working with some incredible stuff. Making a good living out of it, maybe, and that would be that. Now, we have 55 people that work for us on two continents."
Over the years, thousands of rare items have passed through the Prop Store's hands, including the most coveted piece of memorabilia from last year's auction: Star-Lord's helmet from Guardians of the Galaxy.
The Prop Store's success reflects the rapid expansion of the memorabilia market, which, according to Lane, has grown from $30 million to $40 million a decade ago to around $300 million to $400 million today.
"I think it's been growing for two reasons. A: There's been an explosion in interest for popular culture. Fans are just loving it more and more," Lane said. "So there are more people who are interested at what happens behind the scenes, the making of movies, watching the Blu-ray extras and things like that. And b, I think also Prop Store has been championing the cause that this is material that should be preserved for future generations as well.
"The production companies and the film companies have seen that as well," Lane continued. "When a film is made today, every asset is bar-coded, cataloged and tracked from the beginning of the film until the end, and nothing goes back to rental houses. They keep it all because they know now that there's value in the property."
While high sales prices obtained at the company's past four annual auctions have proved that demand is plentiful, the process of obtaining items can be arduous and time-consuming.
For example, this year's Empire Strikes Back jacket—the first piece of Han Solo clothing from the original trilogy to be auctioned—was discovered by Lane on a rack of miscellaneous military jackets in a Los Angeles costume house where it had been sitting for nearly four decades.
If it were not for Lane's knowledge of the film, the jacket would have remained in obscurity, surrounded by people who had no idea of its worth.
"We're constantly on the treasure hunt, trying to find and track down where these almost ancient artifacts have ended up," Lane said. "We're often trying to uncover where they've gone and what the journey has been after filming."
Salvaging and passing on these incredible items is a passion shared by many of Lane's colleagues. Tim Lawes, the Prop Store's general manager, told Newsweek he was first and foremost a movie buff and memorabilia collector before he got involved with the company.
"I like to collect things from films that I loved when I was a child, and a lot of collectors are in the same boat," he explained. "It's just having something you see on the big screen in your house that you can show your friends. It's a pride of ownership. Most people buy props because they share a connection with a certain movie and want to own a part of it."
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