$100k For Kenobi's Cloak

dws90 writes "The cloak worn by Sir Alec Guinness when he played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars original trilogy has been sold at a TV and Cinema auction. The cloak sold for £54,000, which is about $103,923 according to Google calculator. According to the article, the cloak was missing for nearly 30 years, during which it was rented out to a number of other films, including the Mummy. It was found two years ago, and has been part of a film memorabilia exhibition in London since then. The cloak sold for more than any of the other movie costumes the article listed, beating out Sean Connery's dinner jacket from Thunderball and a helmet worn by Terry Jones in Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Comments

Only $100k?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

I'd imagine that Leia's slave outfit from ROTJ would go for much, much more than $100k.

Re:Only $100k?

[Sobrique]

Depends who was wearing it last.

Re:Only $100k?

[D-Cypell]

It's funny you should say that, because as soon as I read this story, my first reaction was...

"There is a millionaire out there that is gonna be doing some 'roleplay' tonight!".

Re:Only $100k?

[Billosaur]

Really? I picture some rich Geek-onaire putting it on, walking into bars, strolling up to beautiful women and intoning "I'm the Jedi you're looking for." But that's just one point of view.

Re:Only $100k?

[Megane]

Maybe BloodNinja bought it...

"Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat. AND KENOBI'S ROBE!"

Re:Only $100k?

[leamanc]

Only if it came with 1983-vintage, coked-out Carrie Fisher pre-installed in it.

Re:Only $100k?

[roman_mir]

You are in front of a mirror, trying it on right now, aren't you?

Re:Only $100k?

[Afrosheen]

A guy would be saying this?

  I think I just threw up a little bit. In my mouth.

Of course, it wasn't very pretty...

[jpellino]

With the earlier owners standing at the back of the auction screaming "THIS IS NOT THE CLOAK YOU'RE LOOKING FOR!!!"

They knew it was Guinness' cloak

[Rob T Firefly]

They found a slip of paper in the pocket which said "bald with glasses."

Cloak

[Ikyaat]

This is so worth it, I know for a fact that this cloak gives you +12 Agility and +20 Charisma. I personally would wear it to work and get all the babes.

Re:Cloak

[djtachyon]

.. and off to JWST (Jedi Workplace Sensitivity Training) with the lot of ya!

Re:Cloak

[jbeaupre]

Holy cow! You managed to combine role playing and Star Wars along with a desperate desire for companionship in one line on Slashdot. Geekdom so tightly compressed you risked creating a singularity, destroying humanity.

Re:Cloak

[Puff of Logic]

posession of the garmment may well imbue you with an ability to acquire females with whom previously you stood no chance, but I would like as not expect, they would not be ones I, nor you, would happily hold forth as example of 'babes' I suspect, however, that possession of the sort of financial holdings that allow one to blow that sort of cash on a movie prop would imbue the holder with the ability to acquire females definitely falling into the 'babe' category.

Remember, it's the size of your wallet, not what you do with it!

Re:Cloak

[nomadic]

Holy cow! You managed to combine role playing and Star Wars along with a desperate desire for companionship in one line on Slashdot. Geekdom so tightly compressed you risked creating a singularity, destroying humanity.

I think he was one Dr. Who reference away from killing us all.

After the novelty wears off

[drooling-dog]

So I wonder how it feels to have blown that much money on something like this, after the novelty's worn off and you've already worn it around the house and invited your friends over to see and touch it. A little buyer's remourse, maybe?

Re:After the novelty wears off

[ari_j]

Buyer's remorse is more the immediate, emotional response to a purchase brought on by emotional doubt that the decision you made was the right one. I think that the rational realization after two weeks of pretending to be an old Jedi that you made the wrong decision is more in line with crappy investing or even garden-variety stupidity than with emotion.

Re:After the novelty wears off

[mastershake_phd]

You kidding? The price can only go up! Well until all the Star Wars fans die off. Or maybe Star Wars fans will never die off. Maybe it will be a religion in 2000 years. And Han Solo Said "Make it so #2" and he did, and it was good.

Re:After the novelty wears off

[db32]

This is just the precursor to buying the corpse and building a display out of it. The cloak...pft...having a Jedi under glass...now that is impressive.

Re:After the novelty wears off

[BendingSpoons]

This is not the investment you're looking for.

Jedi Cloak Trick

[Butisol]

**"You want to pay $100,000 for this cloak" --"I don't know, it seems awfully expensive" **"You want to pay $100,000 for this cloak" --"I want to pay $100,000 for the cloak"

Re:Jedi Cloak Trick

[Anonymous Coward]

I had an uncle that once did a Jedi cloak trick for us... he's in jail now.

Re:Jedi Cloak Trick

[nigham]

"If you sell me off I shall become more expensive than you can possibly imagine."

Re:Jedi Cloak Trick

[Anonymous Coward]

Did it involve touching his lightsaber?

Value?

[Lord_Dweomer]

You know, I never used to question the value of these sorts of things, and still don't for truly unique film artifacts like the original lightsabers or storm trooper helmets, but I have to ask the question...."SERIOUSLY?!"

Something tells me the person buying this would be the same person spending $100 on a piece of cardboa...err, Magic card. The only reason I ask this is because I used to be that kind of person, but now I find myself questioning the wisdom of someone who would toss out that big of a chunk of money for a piece of cloth.

I know that the value assigned to something is determined by what the market will bear...just playing Devil's Advocate is all. Not saying I wouldn't want to own it myself, just not at that price.

Re:Value?

[Opportunist]

We're talking a one-of-a-kind here. And one that some people deem valuable for some reason. The more people deem it valuable, the higher its value. That's why paintings are valuable and range in the millions, 'cause pretty much everyone considers a painting of Picasso valuable. By itself, it's pretty much worthless, it's some linnen and some oil paint.

The same is true for that cloak or the cards you mention. Other good examples are stamps. There is no "real" value attached to them. Their value comes from being rare and the fact that there are some people who'd love to have them.

As you've said, the price of an item is what the market will bear. And since there is a market, the price goes up. Another reason for the price of those rare items going up is simply that they can't be multiplied. There's one. If you have it, you have the only one in existance. And as long as the economy does not collapse, its value will at the worst stay the same, and given some luck it goes up. In other words, if nothing else, it's a good investment.

who

[mastershake_phd]

It was found two years ago

Who found it? And how did they know what it was? Did Sir Alec Guinness write his name on the collar?

Re:who

[nomadic]

Who found it?

Someone found it crumpled up on the floor of the Death Star.

Missing, presumed rented

[mccalli]

From the summary: "According to the article, the cloak was missing for nearly 30 years, during which it was rented out to a number of other films, including the Mummy."

For rent: one cloak. Location: unknown. Cost: If sir needs to ask, sir cannot afford it. Renter collects.

Cheers,
Ian

Dr Who scarf

[Rob T Firefly]

I know I'm a sad fanboy for pointing this out, but the "Doctor Who" scarf pictured in the article and purported to be part of Tom Baker's costume, looks nothing like any of the scarves he wore on the show.

Re:Dr Who scarf

[Billosaur]

You're only a sad Dr. Who fanboy if you wrote that while wearing one of Tom Baker's original scarves.

Re:That explains it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but Darths I-IV couldn't manage it!

McCoy's costume sold for more

[Brian Cohen]

The article implies that this broke some sort of record, but the article fails to mention the space suit worn by Dr. McCoy wore in "The Tholian Web" that sold for $144,000 at the Christie's Star Trek auction.

Dr Who items also sold

[acroyear]

Outpost Gallifrey is reporting that several original Dr. Who costumes were sold in the same auction, and Tom Baker's coat and scarf took in over 24000 GBP. Other Doctors' costumes took between 1000 and 8000 GBP each.

Moo

[Chacham]

FTA:

While Sir Alec's cloak was missing, it was loaned to other films - including The Mummy in 1999 - and was even hired out as fancy dress.

How was it loaned if it was missing? And ever more... how was it "hired out"?!

$100k For Kenobi's Cloak

[Kortegaard]

Ahhhh, but the oldies are the goodies.

Judy's red slippers in Wizard of Oz stepped away for $666,000

Re:$100k For Kenobi's Cloak

[comradeeroid]

$666 thousand? Who bought them? The devil?

Re:The Mummy?

[NinjaTariq]

Didn't you know Rick was a Jedi Knight and Jonathan was his Padewan... And Imhotep was really Jonathan and Evelyn's father. However the sabre battle was cut out during post production due to copyright issues with Lucas.

Re:Is it really real?

[Maximum Prophet]

Good point. Many movie props have many duplicates, in case one gets damaged, or if one is planned to be damaged during filming. After the fact, it'd be very difficult to tell which was the one that was really filmed, and which was a standby prop.

I have some friends that have an actual Yoda. It most definitly isn't the one that made it to film, it's more like a pre-production prototype. (looks just like him tho)

Re:Well, after your government has taken their sha

[sqldr]

Sorry, I didn't realise this was a nationalist forum for paranoid fox news watchers.

What I want to know...

[fonetik]

...Is what sold for the LEAST. Did they have a scarf that Dustin Hoffman wore in "Ishtar"? Kevin Bacon's Bike from "Quicksilver"? Someone had to get some bargains there.

Re:Full Auction Catalog

[Reziac]

What a lot of these hardcore fans don't recognise is that there probably wasn't just ONE "Kenobi cloak" -- there probably were half a dozen, to allow for damage, cleaning, etc. (they can't stop the cameras for a week just because you spilled coffee on your costume -- they bring out another one, you change, and off you go again).

An item that's not yet in the costuming house's inventory is usually stitched together quick and dirty, so I'd be surprised if the probable-several-cloaks were more than a cursory match -- good enough for the camera at the time, if not for the nitpickers 3 decades later. And over the course of being rented out for later productions, these cloaks probably underwent minor alterations/repairs, too.

As I recall, there were at least 8 partial or full Darth Vader costumes from the first 3 films. So if anyone claims to have the One True Costume, they're delusional. :)

Some quotes you might hear out of the bedroom

[nephridium]

Impressive!
Most impressive!
Use the force, Luke!
I can't - it's too big!
All right, don't lose your temper. I'll come right back and give you a hand.
Let go, Luke!
Luke, you switched off your targeting computer, what's wrong?


And if he's more of the "kinky" kind we'll also hear:

Now I am the master!
Steady, girl. What's the matter? You smell something?
Now, release your anger!

And of course:

The target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system.. Only a precise hit will set up a chain reaction.