A glowing C-3PO head from Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back has officially entered the million-dollar collectors' club, selling for more than $1 million (€980,000) at auction.
The iconic prop went under the hammer earlier this week, as part of the Spring Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction at Propstore in Los Angeles.
Remarkably, it's the only known screen-used example of the golden protocol droid's head ever to reach the collector market. After arriving with a pre-sale estimate of $350,000-$700,000 (€323,000-€646,000), it eventually sold for $1,058,400.
There were plenty of other film relics for cinephiles and collectors to bid for. The harpoon gun wielded by Robert Shaw's grizzled shark hunter Quint in Steven Spielberg's 1975 summer blockbuster Jaws, complete with its original case, reeled in $327,600 (€303,000).
Also featured from Jaws was the Fenwick fishing rod and reel used by Shaw's character during his tense showdown with the great white. The screen-used prop sold for a jaw-dropping $239,400 (€221,000).
Elsewhere, Wilson the volleyball, Tom Hank's inanimate co-star in Cast Away - exceeded expectations, selling for $189,000 (€175,000), against an estimate of $150,000-$300,000 (€139,000-€278,000).
Fantasy fans also had plenty to get excited about - broken fragments of a sword from The Lord of the Rings trilogy fetched $252,000 (€233,000), while the Marauder’s Map from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban received a winning bid of $59,850 (€55,000).
A golden ticket from Gene Wilder’s original Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory also sold for $107,100 (€99,000).
While the C-3PO head stole the spotlight at this year’s auction, Star Wars collectors have seen even bigger sums in the past. Last year, a lightsaber used by Darth Vader in the original Star Wars films – A New Hope (1977); The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983) - sold for a record-shattering $3.6million (approx. €3m).
The winning bid for the iconic red lightsaber ($2.9m plus a $700,000 buyers premium paid to the auction house) at another Propstore auction, made the item the highest-valued product ever put on sale from the hit movie franchise.
The lightsaber beat a plastic Star Wars action figure of Boba Fett to the top spot, which fetched $1.342 million (approx. €1.144m) in 2024.
The final day of bidding takes place on 27 March.
