Place a higher bid, Dave. This "nearly complete" spacesuit from Stanley Kubrick's seminal space opera 2001: A Space Odyssey is currently up for auction. Starting bid is $50,000 and it's expected to go as high as $300,000. From the Julien's Auctions description:

The spacesuit is an amalgamation of components worn by different actors and in many scenes throughout the film. This is highlighted by a helmet featuring four distinct layers of paint (a base of color of white, then green, then yellow, and lastly in its present color of white), indicating that it was used in different scenes by multiple actors and representing a number of characters . This nearly complete costume is of the lunar type in its present state (silver body suit, blue back pack, white helmet). This suit appears to be original in silver (never repainted). However, due to the layering of paint, the helmet appears to have been employed as a lunar type, then two of the four Discovery types (green and then yellow; the other colors/types being red and blue), then as a lunar type again. This helmet has a textured strip of tape inside with "HELMET A" written across in red.

Most notably, the base green layer of paint seen in chips, cracks, and green overspray throughout the helmet surface suggest that it may have been the very helmet worn by Keir Dullea, who portrayed Dr. Dave Bowman (the lead astronaut on the film’s Discovery mission to Jupiter) in the sequence in which he reenters antechamber of the Discovery surrounded by banks of circuit breakers leading to the "brain room" and logic center to “kill” HAL in one of the most famous science fiction scenes of all time.

TIL: In general, props are the items actors touch/handle, everything else is part of the set decoration and not the responsibility of the property master. Read the rest

Fourth Seal Studios has everything you could possibly want from high-end prop eyeballs, including $40 "camera-ready" eyes ("Gray cores darken the the 'white' of the eye and can add a more realistic sense to the overall piece the eyes are being featured in"); $22-40 sculptural eyeballs in a variety of scales; "Undead and Creature" eyes (including Red Lich, Hemorrhage, Goat Eyes, etc); kits for making your own eyes and irises; painting and display stands, and custom eyeballs to order. Check back frequently for discounts on seconds and imperfections. (via JWZ) Read the rest

You can own the reception desk from Dunder Mifflin's Scranton branch! Hundreds of props from The Office are now up for auction. Items include the likes of Angela's stuffed cat, Dwight's wolf art, and myriad desk items like calculators, computer screens, desk lamps, files, keyboards, beets, bears, Battlestar Galactica.

The Office auction (Screenbid)

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Han Solo's blaster used in "Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi" sold for $550,000 at a Las Vegas auction on Saturday. Turns out that Ripley's Believe It Or Not bought it. Believe it... or not. The prop was part of a collection sold off by the movie's art director James L. Schoppe. From Rolling Stone:

Other items at Saturday's auction included an original "Biker Scout Blaster" (sold for $90,000) and an Ewok prop axe ($11,000) from Return of the Jedi.

However, Han Solo's blaster fell well short of the record for the priciest Star Wars item in the franchise's auction history: In June 2017, an R2-D2 unit that was seen in numerous Star Wars films sold at auction for $2.76 million, over its $2 million pre-auction estimate.

At first I was disappointed that the Mystery Machine and Knight 2000 weren't invited but then I realized they were probably on a separate TV star car field trip.

All of these iconic autos and many more are available for rental from Movie Cars Central in France.

(via r/pics) Read the rest

In 1957, Danish architect Arne Jacobson designed a exquisite set of minimalist cutlery that Stanley Kubrick personally selected as the flatware aboard the Discovery One in “2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968). Now you can buy it on Amazon.com for $100/set. This is the future, baby! From the New York Times:

Jacobsen designed (the cutlery) at the height of his career, in his mid-50s, for one of his most prestigious assignments, the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. Having established his reputation as Denmark’s leading Modernist by designing first houses and then public buildings, Jacobsen sealed it in 1956 by bagging the most coveted position in Danish design, as professor of architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. The SAS commission offered an opportunity for him to create a new national landmark, a grand hotel for the jet age. This would require him to design not just the building but all of its contents: chairs, furnishings, curtains, lighting, even the cutlery.

Ignoring convention, Jacobsen started from scratch by imagining what eating utensils would be like if they were natural extensions of the human body, and came up with abstractions of the traditional shape for knives, forks and spoons. The light, slender slivers of metal are designed to fit neatly into the hand at one end and the mouth at the other, with wide, flat surfaces for the fingertips to hold on to.

"The Cutting Edge" (New York Times, 2009)

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The Lifeclock One: Snake Edition is a $300 licensed replica of the countdown timer watch worn by Snake Plissken in Escape From New York: it's very cool looking and faithful to the original prop, but regrettably, the designers have added in a bunch of "smart-watch" features (Bluetooth, an app, text-message and app notifications from your phone) that raise the price, create needless attack surface, and add complexity. Read the rest

An Iron Man suit from the original 2008 film is missing. Apparently the $325,000 suit disappeared from a Los Angeles warehouse in recent months. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Employees at the warehouse 'just happened to check' Tuesday and noticed the costume was gone."

As of press time, Stane has not responded to requests for comment.

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Blade Runner superfan Adam Savage and Norm Chan build exquisite Blade Runner snub-nosed blasters:

Norm and Adam both work on their kits, each taking a different approach to the paint and finish. Adam goes one step further by adding machined metal parts to his blaster, giving it a brilliant look and some real heft.

(Tested) Read the rest

Bonhams is auctioning off one of the lightsaber props used in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). This is one of three lightsabers used in my favorite scene from the film, when R2D2 launches it into the air for Luke to catch as he flips into the air above the Sarlacc's pit (watch below). The lightsaber goes on the auction block November 21 and is expected to fetch as much as $250,000. From Bonhams:

Several Lightsabers were used in the scene and this particular one is shown in closeup insert shots of R2D2. A more aerodynamic and safer plastic one was fired during the next long shot, and Mark Hamill catches a third "Hero" Lightsaber. Note that the chipped edge along the top rim of the Lightsaber used in closeups matches up with this one.

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The best thing about Jurassic Park was the walking cane with the mosquito-in-amber knob. It turns out a lot of people have made replicas of the prop. Here's a very nice one that Peter Brown and Pocket 83 made. Read the rest

The legendary lightsaber that Obi Wan passed on to Luke in Star Wars: A New Hope was actually a modified battery tube from a 1940s Graflex camera flash. Once that was known, prop recreators drove up the price of the flashes, frustrating vintage camera geeks who appreciate the elegant gear for a more civilized age.

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James Cawley is a 50 year old Elvis impersonator from Ticonderoga, NY; his friend William Ware Theiss was costume-designer for the original Star Trek series, and left Cawley the blueprints for the original Star Trek Enterprise sets in his will -- so Cawley rented out a 13,000 sqft shuttered supermarket and built an exquisite replica of the original there to use in elaborate fan-films, and now he gives one-hour tours. Read the rest

Boing Boing pal Adam Savage (MythBusters, Tested) tours the incredible prop collection of Peter Jackson, producer of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, District 9, and the forthcoming The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun. One of his favorite pieces? An original Hal 9000 faceplate! That is quite the wunderkammer, Mr. Jackson! (Tested)

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Brian Mix shows off his replica Jupiter 2 computer, a remake based on the 1960s TV Lost in Space show -- which was also used as the 1966 Bat Computer in the Batman TV show. Read the rest

Lions Gate Entertainment is auctioning off a slew of screen-used props from Mad Men, including Don Draper's 1964 Imperial Crown Convertible. Less than 1,000 of this car were made and fewer than 200 are still around. Also in the Mad Men lot are the likes of Pete Campbell's Globe Bar Cart, Don's Ray Bans and copy of Dante's Inferno, clothing and, um, a bunch of fake grocery items from Betty's kitchen. The online auction commences June 1.

(via Uncrate) Read the rest