A good friend of mine is offering a piece for sale on eBay that I’ve always been a fan of, so I thought I would provide a mention here for others in this art market who might find it of interest. I’ve always been attracted to movie car props, and this is one of those cars that is immediately identifiable to fans of contemporary cinema – the Chevy Nova from Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof. [Read more…]
Premiere Props have listed their next auction with online bidding partners iCollector, LiveAuctioneers, and ArtFact as part of their “Hollywood Extravaganza XII”. The two-day auction is scheduled for November 23-24, currently featuring over 1,000 lots (though it appears more than half of that are not props and costumes but comic books, posters, and other memorabilia). As with past auctions, the sale includes a mix of original props, costumes, and other film and television artifacts, as well as general Hollywood Memorabilia. There are many vintage off the shelf antiques attributed to film and television productions with no explanation as to how and why such claims are made. [Read more…]
An issue that seems to come up with every official studio auction of original props and costumes from popular television shows is that of buyers feeling mislead by descriptions of auction houses, particularly use. We saw this with Christie’s and their official “40 years of Star Trek” auction, with Profiles in History and their sale of material from ABC’s LOST, and based on a reader comment today on my article about newcomer ScreenBid and their Breaking Bad auction, it would seem that the same issue is in play with this latest sale as well. Since people likely don’t check my articles for comments after reading it, I thought it might be worthwhile and productive to highlight that comment and my response in a new article, as it is an issue that seems to occur with each of these official studio sales, particularly because it brings in participants who have not participated in such sales before, and perhaps have not purchased or collected original props, costumes, and other artifacts from film and television. [Read more…]
On the heels of the one-day notice, in person only sale of some original props, costumes, and set pieces from Breaking Bad that happened last weekend at Albuquerque Goodwill, newly launched online auctioneer ScreenBid has launched an extensive auction with hundreds of key props, costumes, and other assets from the popular AMC series, which comes to an end this month. Items have been listed on their new website, which is scheduled to run from 9/29 to 10/8. [Read more…]
News broke across the mainstream press today following a report by the Albuquerque Journal that original memorabilia, costumes, props, set pieces, and other assets from the production of Breaking Bad will be sold at auction by Goodwill Industries of New Mexico. With just a handful of episodes left in this final season of the popular Emmy Award-winning AMC show, the production has donated a trailer of material that was used on the show telling the story of Walter White, as portrayed by Bryan Cranston, as a high school chemistry teacher turned crime figure. [Read more…]
As is their usual procedure, Premiere Props has put up a portion of the lots for their upcoming sale (Hollywood Extravaganza XI on September 28-29) with online bidding partner iCollector, though with these lots each includes boilerplate information about authentication that has not been part of past auctions. Back in May, I made a public and literal plea for Premiere Props to put a real and substantive effort into authentication of their consignor-based auction material, and whether or not it is merely coincidental, it appears that they are doing just that starting with this upcoming auction, with “a panel of industry experts not affiliated with Premiere Props” called MovieProps DNA (MPDNA). While the “soft launch” of these changes raises many questions (which I will outline below), it is certain a significant step in the right direction. [Read more…]
Continuing a long line of “screen used” Luke Skywalker prop lightsabers attributed to Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi with connections to Elstree Studios/Elstree Props/The Danziger Collection, yet another one has surfaced for sale on eBay. Although there are photos of the prop and related documents and certificates of authenticity (COAs) from “Piece of the Stars Memorabilia” (a company I have never heard of before), of course the resolution of these images are limited to 500px × 375px (do cameras still exist today that shoot at such a low resolution?), rendering examination challenging, to say the least. In the interests of public debate and discussion, Original Prop Blog has long documented the public sale offerings of other prop lightsabers attributed to Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi that have similar origins and associations, which can be found HERE. [Read more…]
Swann Galleries will be holding a two-part auction of the “Property from the Estate of Fillmaker Gary Winick” and “19th and 20th Century Photographs and Photobooks” on April 4th in New York. Gary Winick, a director and producer, tragically died after a struggle with brain cancer and complications that followed. He passed at the age of 49 about a year ago. [Read more…]