original esb vader costume on the auction block

omp uk said:

I was in the auction room and I don't think there were any bidders. It's fairly standard practice for auction houses to run items up to just below reserve in the hope that they get one bid to bring it to the reserve amount - which in this case was obviously £160k.

I am very glad this didn't sell - in short, it was / is a joke and a high profile sale of such a questionable item would have tarnished the hobby.

Regards,

David

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Ahh, ok. The way the article was written implied that bidding ended at that amount. It should have just said no bidding took place. Thanks for the confirmation and yes, it would have done more damage than good had it sold as advertised.

Okay, yeah, if no bidding took place... then any mention of any amount is again... deceptive.

On eBay that's called shill-bidding and is against the rules.

I have been enjoying this thread quite a lot and have learned two things, one, Vader is still awesome and two, Christies are not trustworthy, thanks Vader boys.

Brian Muir said:

I know that the helmet was shown to David Oliver of Propmasters.net

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Very late to this thread as I have only just managed to finally register after encountering registration problems (my thanks to Art for sorting it out today).

I was indeed invited to view the Vader, post it's already agreed consignment, to Christie's. I've had a mutually respectful business relationship whith Christies London for 20 years now and they were aware of my first hand knowledge of a Vader Helmet.

As a matter of confidence and trust, I am not at liberty to publicly discuss the opinions expressed at the time and I have never publicly expressed any opinion of it since. A couple of week's later Christie's did confirm to me that they intended to catalogue it as not screen used, and they did, all be it in perhaps a long winded, some what confusing, manor but this is how many of the big houses like to describe their potentially high value consignments. I do think their 'use' of Ainsworth and indeed Prowse was missguided but I'm confident that will not occur again.

Putting the Vader itself aside, post the auction I had contact out of the blue from the vendor himself who I found came across as a lovely gentleman. His opinion of his Vader is what he believes and I guess everyone has a right to their own opinion.

- David Oliver