During an auction of objects collected and created by the famous Hollywood modeller, Greg Jein, a model of the X-wing Starfighter ship used was sold for a record amount of more than 3 million dollars (about 2.9 million euros). in a Star Wars movie. Setting a record for the most expensive series screen utility vehicle sold at auction. The collection amassed by Jein, who died last year at the age of 76, raised around $13.6 million (€12.8 million) during an event held on October 14 and 15 at Heritage Auctions, in Dallas.
The auction house reported that this piece was believed lost for decades and was recently found in a box in the garage of his home while the late modeller's collection was being cataloged. "It became a kind of mythical white whale: the lost X-wing of Star Wars," Greg Jein's friend Gene Kozicki, a historian and special effects expert, told The Hollywood Reporter.
In the two days that the bidding lasted, everyone from modelers to collectors and science fiction fans attended, making the event the busiest in years. Joe Maddalena, executive vice president of Heritage Auctions and Jein's friend, said in a press release Monday that the auction was "a profound testament to my friend as both a master of visual effects and one of the great collectors."
The X-wing Starfighter was used in the final battle, including the famous trench chase, of the film Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) and sold for approximately $3.1 million (2.9 million euros) after a bidding duel between two collectors, according to the auction house. The model of about 50 centimeters is one of four "heroic" designs in an "attack" position created by Jein who was part of the Industrial Light team
A Stormtrooper suit - an imperial soldier - that appears in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) was also sold for a surprising amount for 645 thousand dollars (600 thousand euros). Another from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Stanley Kubrick, for 447 thousand dollars (422 thousand euros).
Jein was a Star Trek fan before working on the franchise, and some of the items he collected were auctioned: a film model of the SS Botany Bay vehicle from Star Trek: The Original Series from the 1960s, for $200,000 ( 188 thousand euros); while prop devices from that series, such as a hero phaser, sold for 187.5 thousand dollars (177 thousand euros) or a tricorder for 175 thousand dollars (165 thousand euros).
Not only did Jein have an Oscar- and Emmy-nominated career making miniature models for nearly half a century, but he also spent a lifetime collecting costumes, props, scripts, artwork, photographs, and models from the shows he loved.
The modeller, who grew up in Los Angeles, led the team that created the mothership for Steven Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). The model that appears gigantic in the film measures just over 1.5 meters long and is now part of the collection of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington. A small preliminary model, approximately 12 centimeters long, was auctioned for 55 thousand dollars (51 thousand euros) at the auction.
Lou Zutavern, Jein's longtime friend and project lab supervisor, said he and Jein always had a "great time" working together. He "was a great friend" and recalled the time he brought him a box full of model kits to entertain him after knee surgery. Zutavern told the Associated Press (AP) that his friend had a love of Hollywood history and a passion for finding items for his collection. "He loved to search and find things and make trades," Zutavern said. "It was part of the fun for him."
