An Original Star Wars X-Wing Model Believed To Be Lost For Decades Is Now Up For Auction
When George Lucas and his special effects house Industrial Light and Magic finished shooting "Star Wars" back in the late 1970s, they boxed up all of their props and widgets — then stored in the San Fernando Valley — and moved their operation north, just north of the San Francisco Bay. While most of the "Star Wars" props made the trek undamaged, at least one of the X-wings models remained behind by accident. "Star Wars" fans will instantly note X-wings as the single-occupancy, biplane-like spacecraft that the film's heroes used to attack the Death Star in the film's climax.
One of the more forwardly visible models used to shoot the Death Star sequence — the Red Leader X-wing — was 20 inches long and was equipped with lights and servos to control the "expanding" of the ship's four wings. It was massively detailed and was painted to look like it had seen some action, complete with chipped paint and charred engines. For many years Red Leader was missing, thought to have been lost in ILM's move north.
According to an article by The Hollywood Reporter, Red Leader has been found.
The legend of the missing Red Leader X-wing is well-known to "Star Wars" fanatics, and its resurfacing in the collection of the late model maker Greg Jein is thrilling for the VFX community. VFX expert Gene Kozicki is quoted in the THR piece as comparing the "missing X-wing" to owning a pair of the original Ruby Slippers from "The Wizard of Oz" or the titular prop from "The Maltese Falcon."
The X-wing is currently up for auction on the Heritage Auctions website. The opening bid is $400,000. The auction will end 35 days after it opens on October 13, 2023.
The Jein Collection
Greg Jein was a longtime Hollywood model maker who worked on films like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," (which earned him an Oscar nomination), "1941," and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Jein also built the Enterprise-D and several other striking ships for "Star Trek: The Next Generation." He was, it seems, also a prolific collector of sci-fi memorabilia, and many pieces from his collection are also going to be up for auction through Heritage. Jein passed away in May of 2022, and, according to THR, his collection was carefully cataloged by a team of VFX experts, including Kozicki, Bill George, an old co-worker of Jein's, Lou Zutavern, and his friend Rob McFalane. During the cataloging process, the missing X-wing was found. It was resting comfortably in a cardboard box, undisturbed since 1978.
Kozicki said:
"I knew something was probably in the box, so I started to carefully scoop out the packaging peanuts when the nose of the X-wing showed itself. [...] The four of us knew immediately that it was the actual filming model and then the magnitude of the discovery started to set in."
The missing X-wing was only one of four close-up models built for "Star Wars." It is immensely rare, and glorious to have found in such pristine condition. No one knows exactly how Jein came into possession of the starship, so we can only speculate how he got it. Did Jein buy it deliberately, or was it misplaced? Kozicki posited that there might have merely been a small amount of prop "cross-pollination" in the late 1970s, and that certain models drifted in and out of the hands of various VFX guys at the time.
Previous auctions
This discovery comes after a different Red Leader X-wing was auctioned off by the Prop Store in 2022. As reported by IGN, that prop ended up selling for $2,365,000. The Red Leader X-wings are notably coveted as a lot of the X-wing props were blown up during the filming of "Star Wars." Having full Red Leader X-wings intact is a rare sight indeed.
Many pieces from the Greg Jein collection are also going to be made available, and many of them stretch far back through film history. Jein owned some set decorations from Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi classic "Metropolis," as well as costumes from 1950s Republic serials. One can also bid on film negatives from episodes of "Supercar," a full-on space suit from "2001: A Space Odyssey," and the superhero outfit worn by Billy Zane in the 1996 cult classic "The Phantom."
There are many props from "Star Trek" as well, including one of the brain aliens from the episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion," a tribble, multiple uniforms, a communicator, and a phaser. The latter of those is starting at $80,000.
The missing X-wing, however, has the highest starting bid, followed by a full on-screen Stormtrooper costume, starting at $200,000. Whether it was worn by the actor who bonked his head on camera is not known, although, if the legend is true, a collector may want to have it washed. The Jein collection will be a golden opportunity for very, very wealthy sci-fi fans to decorate their homes with some of the genre's most coveted knickknacks. Scrounge up your bozos and get to bidding.