Incredible numbers came in overnight as Darth Vader’s screen-matched primary hero dueling lightsaber from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi sold at the Propstore Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction for a stunning $3,654,000 (including buyers premium and the fee to the auction house), smashing the estimate of between $1m – $3m. That’s a franchise record, for one of the most iconic props to ever hit the silver screen.
The iconic character’s screen-matched primary dueling lightsaber that was used in the films The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi sold for $3,654,000 when it hit the block from Propstore in Los Angeles on Thursday, becoming the highest-valued piece from the Star Wars franchise ever up for auction. The winning bid came in at a franchise record of $2,900,000 and reached the final total with the additional buyer’s premium that is paid to the auction house.
This is said to be the only hero lightsaber from the original Star Wars trilogy to ever hit an auction. The Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction coincides with this year marking the 45th anniversary of the release of The Empire Strikes Back.
We shall certainly be discussing this and some of the other incredible auctions on the next episode of Making Tracks out Tuesday next week (including Anakin Skywalker’s stunt dueling lightsaber which went for $126,000, and Indiana Jones’ bullwhip and belt from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which sold for $475,650) , and below you can check out our chat with Propstore’s Stephen Lane ahead of the auction at the Dorchester in London a couple of weeks ago.
