Auction Results: The Greg Jein Collection

DALLAS, Texas (Oct. 16, 2023) — This was the auction science-fiction fans were looking for. Heritage’s Greg Jein Collection Hollywood Platinum Signature ^® Auction, which featured more than 550 iconic models, props, costumes and art from the fabled collection of Oscar- and Emmy-nominated miniature man Greg Jein, realized $13,611,406 over the weekend. By Sunday night, the two-day event had become the second-highest-grossing Hollywood auction in history, behind only the $22.8 million Debbie Reynolds auction in 2011, held by Heritage Executive Vice President Joe Maddalena, and eclipsing the legendary 1999 Marilyn Monroe auction.

The nearly sold-out event, stuffed with tangible memories from some of science fiction’s most impactful films and franchises, realized its earth-shattering sum thanks to the more than 2,200 client-collectors worldwide who bid online, over the phone and in person. The Jein event was Heritage’s best-attended auction in years, the auction room filled with Hollywood model-makers, distinguished collectors and sci-fi fans who will never again have a shot at these significant pieces that would have been lost to history had Jein not spent decades preserving and protecting them.

“The success of this auction — from the overall result to the number of participating bidders to the packed-out auction room full of Greg’s friends and fans — was a profound testament to my friend as both a visual-effects master and one of the great collectors,” says Heritage Executive Vice President Joe Maddalena. “This event exceeded my expectations, and I couldn’t be prouder to have been part of this historic event.”

Almost every item in the auction shattered its pre-auction estimate, including a screen-matched X-wing starfighter that led the Rebel Alliance’s assault on the Death Star in 1977’s Star Wars, which sold Sunday for $3,135,000. The Red Leader miniature soared to epic heights during a prolonged duel between two collectors who helped make this X-wing the most valuable screen-used prop from George Lucas’ epic space opera, which changed cinema forever, and it was among countless show-stoppers in the two-day event. Moments before the X-wing blasted its way into the record books, one of the few surviving Imperial Stormtrooper costumes from Star Wars realized $645,000.

But both had extraordinary company, as nearly every single lot during the Jein event sparked a bidding war, including the props, costumes and models from the 1960s ABC-TV series Batman,the original Star Trek and its follow-up films and series, Close Encounters of the Third Kind(for which Jein received his first Academy Award nomination) and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Jein, as much student as master of the miniature craft, preserved one of the only known surviving space suits from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The six-piece ensemble in this auction, including the helmet and the backpack, hailed from the sequence on the moon, where the monoliths signal to the Firstborn that humans have taken another step in their evolution. It sold Sunday for $447,000.

Not far behind were the treads once affixed to the B-9, the robot from Lost in Space, which sold for $350,000. The robot’s feet didn’t fail bidders who tussled over the remaining treads from the robot, which was often called Robot, each constructed from metal frames with two sets of four pulleys, which helped them roll to a record finish. Another beloved Lost in Space model, the All-Terrain Chariot filming miniature carrying characters inside, sold for $162,500.

Not surprisingly, Jein’s epic Star Trek collection beamed up the event’s most extensive results — and its most prolonged bidding wars. Jein adored the franchise as a kid and worked on Trek when it leaped to the big screen with 1979’s The Motion Picture. Jein’s Trek collection should never have lived this long, much less prospered this well. It included among its copious treasures two of the few surviving models from the series’ initial three-year run, among them the Galileo shuttlecraft so popular it once had its own episode (“The Galileo Seven”) and an AMT model kit in the 1970s. It realized $225,000.

Tagging along was the more than 3.5-foot-long SS Botany Bay from “The Space Seed” episode in which the USS Enterprise crew first encountered Khan Noonien Singh. That extraordinary treasure realized $200,000, the same amount garnered for a collection of more than 300 scripts from Gene Roddenberry’s original Trek.

One of the auction’s most coveted treasures was the exceptionally rare hero phaser from the original Trek, designed by art director Walter “Matt” Jefferies, who was also responsible for the initial Enterprise. It realized $187,500. Close behind was the Trek tricorder made by legendary artist, sculptor, model and miniature master Wah Chang, who created many props and alien creatures for Trek‘s maiden voyage on NBC in the 1960s. The tricorder scanned a winning bid of $175,000. Rounding out the holy trinity of Star Trek props and landing-party gear was a communicator that sold for $150,000.

“We all have our favorites, and Star Trek was Greg’s — it was his true passion,” says Maddalena. “Over half the auction was Star Trek.” Indeed, the Trek offerings in The Greg Jein Auction were nearly as vast as the final frontier, with every offering shattering expectations. Even props used only a handful of times triggered tussles among bidders: The Universal Translator, for instance, used in just two episodes, sold for $61,250.

And, of course, collectors fought all weekend over costumes from throughout Trek’s voyages, among them the blue Mr. Spock tunic from the show’s third and final season and Captain Kirk’s field uniform, from jacket to boots, worn in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Each realized $150,000.

Most of the offerings in this auction weren’t made to survive beyond filming, and most likely wouldn’t have lasted were it not for Jein, who friends and colleagues say rescued much of this material from history’s dustbin and studio dumpsters. He also traded with colleagues and bought props and costumes from such places as the original Larry Edmunds Bookshop, where, in the 1960s, he kicked off his collecting by snapping up the collection of Batman utility belts and props available in this auction.

Among their lot was the folding Batarang used by Adam West’s Caped Crusader and the yellow utility-belt holster marked “BAT-A-RANG.” A bidding war drove its final price to $106,250. Holy Six Figures, Batman!

Jein’s collection eventually grew to such epic proportions it was housed all over Los Angeles, in friends’ workspaces and in houses where Jein stored — and restored — ships, helmets and other props from such TV shows as Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Space: 1999, Battlestar Galactica and V. All of that was here, too, with a Shark Fighter filming miniature from Buck Rogers topping them all at $100,000. They were joined by some of the most significant pieces from sci-fi and cinema history, spanning Jein’s beloved 1940s and ’50s serials, including Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe, whose helmet and extra facemask sold Saturday for $112,500. “Greg didn’t collect things for their value,” his first cousin Jerry Chang said before the auction. “He collected because he enjoyed these things.” Now others will get to enjoy, preserve and protect them.

Click here for complete results from the Greg Jein Collection Hollywood Platinum Signature^® Auction.

Source: Press Release