Darth Vader’s lightsaber sells for nearly $5 million - are prop collectors mad?

Ciara Kelly (0:00)

The Hard Shoulder, with Ciara Kelly and Shane Coleman. On Newstalk, with Kiya.

SPEAKER_2 (0:09)

If you only knew the power of the dark side, Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father. He told me enough.

He told me you killed him. No, I am your father.

Shane Coleman (0:33)

Hard to believe nearly 50 years since that classic clip. Darth Vader's lightsaber used in those Star Wars movies and The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, as well as Star Wars itself, sold at auction for nearly five million dollars. It had been expected to sell for a million dollars. So our prop collectors, Madwell to chat through it with us is entertainment journalist and host of the Screenland podcast, Brian Lloyd. Brian, five million quid for a lightsaber. That is extraordinary.

Brian Lloyd (1:03)

And it's only like the it's literally just the actual hilt of it as well. So like the kind of what they what they used to have was like a kind of a photo, a photo beam lighting that they would use.

Shane Coleman (1:14)

It was just a handle basically.

Brian Lloyd (1:15)

It's basically just a handle. That's it now. Obviously it'll be mounted. It'll have a certificate of authenticity. There'll be all sort of provenance kind of documentation to go along with it for a prop of that value. But yeah, basically five million for what was, I think they built them out of like the handle from the old cameras. You know, like the old cameras where they'd have like the big lights, the big, like the light and the bulb would fly out of it.

Shane Coleman (1:40)

Yeah.

Brian Lloyd (1:40)

Not those old ones. That's literally what that's made out of. Like bolex, a bolex light bulb or something like that is what they were made out of, yeah.

Shane Coleman (1:47)

Some people would say spending five million on is a load of, I won't say the word is.

Brian Lloyd (1:54)

It's huge business though.

Shane Coleman (1:55)

Is it?

Brian Lloyd (1:55)

It is huge, huge business.

Shane Coleman (1:57)

So like talk is true. So first of all, before you do, you brought in your own bit of memorabilia.

Brian Lloyd (2:04)

No, I didn't spend five million on this.

Shane Coleman (2:06)

No.

Brian Lloyd (2:07)

I did not spend five million on this. I actually bought it this time last year for my fourth year. I bought a screen used cap from the 1980 sci-fi film Outland. This was not the one.

Shane Coleman (2:19)

Starring Sean Connery.

Brian Lloyd (2:20)

Starring Sean Connery, correct.

This was not worn by Sean Connery, I don't think. But I was watching the film back and I randomly went on to eBay to look for the hats because I thought they looked kind of cool. And then I found this one and the woman I bought it off, she could have been easily spinning me a complete yarn. But she said that her grandfather worked on the film and that he was an extra. He didn't have any lines but he had the costume and he brought it home. And she sent me a few pictures of it and then like I could actually look at it here and you can see it there like there's the little tag on it says Outland, The Lad Company, 1980 and all the rest of it. So yeah, bought that for my 40th.

Shane Coleman (2:59)

So I'm like when you think it's like cinematic history is packed with various outfits, props and so on.

Brian Lloyd (3:09)

So I mean, there must be some industry in the one huge like I mean, Stephen Spielberg was one of the owners of the original Rosebud sled from Citizen Kane and I looked it up there just when I was waiting outside. It's sold in 2025, this is the Rosebud sled for $14.75 million. $14.75 million. Yeah. One of the DeLoreans from Back to the Future was sold for $541,000.

I'm not sure if the car was actually working because famously the DeLoreans were, you know, they were lemons, like they break down pretty easily. So I don't know if they were just driving or not.

Shane Coleman (3:49)

But why, I mean, like surely any DeLorean car, why?

Brian Lloyd (3:54)

They're rare enough as they are, aren't they?

Shane Coleman (3:55)

They are. I mean, would it massively make a difference that it was the one used?

Brian Lloyd (3:58)

But it has the flux capacitor in it.

Ciara Kelly (4:00)

It's got the thing in the middle, you know what I mean?

Brian Lloyd (4:02)

You get it up to 88 miles an hour.