The collection amassed by Jein, who died final yr at the age of 76, introduced in about $13.6 million throughout an occasion at Heritage Auctions in Dallas. The auction home stated that everybody from model-makers to collectors and science-fiction followers attended, making the occasion its best-attended in years.
Joe Maddalena, Heritage’s government vp and a longtime good friend of Jein’s, stated in a information launch Monday that the auction was “a profound testament to my friend as both a visual-effects master and one of the great collectors.”
Jein not solely had an Oscar and Emmy-nominated profession making miniature fashions for almost half a century, however he additionally spent a lifetime accumulating costumes, props, scripts, art work, images and fashions from the exhibits he cherished.
The Red Leader X-wing Starfighter that was used within the 1977 movie “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope” sold for about $3.1 million after a bidding duel between two collectors, the auction home stated. Also going for an eye-popping quantity was a “Star Wars” Stormtrooper costume that sold for $645,000.
A uncommon surviving spacesuit from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” sold for $447,000.
Jein was a fan of “ Star Trek ” earlier than he labored on the franchise — and a few of the gadgets that he collected had been standard at the auction. A filming mannequin of the “SS Botany Bay” vessel from “Star Trek: The Original Series” from the Nineteen Sixties went for $200,000 whereas prop gadgets from that sequence like a hero phaser went for $187,500 and a tricorder garnered $175,000.
Jein, who grew up in Los Angeles, was nonetheless early in his profession when he led the staff that created the mothership for Steven Spielberg’s 1977 movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The mannequin that seems gigantic within the film is simply over 5 ft (1.5 meters) lengthy and now half of the gathering at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. A small preliminary mannequin, which is about 5 inches (12 centimeters) lengthy, introduced in $55,000 at the auction.
Lou Zutavern, Jein’s longtime good friend and store supervisor, stated that he and Jein all the time had “a ball” working collectively. He stated Jein was a nice good friend, and recalled the time he introduced a field crammed with mannequin kits to entertain Zutavern after he had a knee surgical procedure.
Zutavern stated his good friend had a love of Hollywood historical past, and a ardour for looking for out gadgets for his assortment.
“He loved the search and finding things and making a trade,” Zutavern stated. “It was part of the fun for him.”
