Last month we covered an ongoing auction of Star Wars memorabilia in which the most eye-catching item was the lightsaber prop used by Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back’s iconic “I am your father!” fight, and also throughout Return of the Jedi. The other prop involved in the fateful fight in Cloud City’s central air shaft—the lightsaber used by Luke Skywalker, which came complete with its owner’s severed hand—sold [earlier this year] for a record $3.75m, making it the most expensive Star Wars prop ever sold, and there was speculation that its record might be broken when bidding started on Vader’s weapon.
And so it came to be. Bidding on the items up for auction closed yesterday, and the lightsaber record wasn’t just broken; it was disemboweled and dumped into a pit for the Sarlacc to digest over the course of a thousand years. Proving that the dark side has more allure than the light—at least for the sort of people who have seven figures to drop on a pretend laser sword—the Vader saber went for a whopping $4,875,000. Yep, that’s nearly five million real American dollars.
That price means the lightsaber isn’t just the most expensive Star Wars prop ever sold; it also makes it the most expensive piece of Star Wars memorabilia ever sold at auction, period.…
