If your criteria for Star Wars memorabilia include that it must be very rare, display-ready (and portable), and instantly recognizable, you just missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime—but also saved yourself a million bucks. C-3PO‘s light-up head used in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back has just fetched a huge price at Propstore’s latest entertainment-themed auction.
That’s well over the auction house’s estimate of $350,000 to $700,000 and speaks to the value of the item; according to a Propstore press release, it’s “the only known example of Threepio’s head from the second film to appear on the collector market.”
Granted, $1 million is quite a bit less than the almost $4 million someone paid for Darth Vader’s lightsaber last year. But it still means the protocol droid’s disembodied noggin has entered the rare air of movie props that have sold for over seven figures (the actual sale price was $1,058,4000).
In the same auction, and previously covered on io9, were some highly prized Jaws props, extremely rare holdovers from the film’s famously chaotic production: Quint’s harpoon gun, case, and accompanying “custom VFX shark dart,” which sold for $327,600; and Quint’s fishing rod and reel, which sold for $239,400. We already made the “you’re going to need a bigger wallet” joke in anticipation of those prices.
You can check out all the details about the auction, which runs through today, March 27, at Propstore.
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