Luke Skywalker Lightsaber Leads Heritage Entertainment Auction Week to More Than $14 Million
Heritage Auctions’ five-day Hollywood and entertainment auction week brought in more than $14 million, led by a record-breaking Star Wars prop that became one of the biggest pop culture auction sales of the year.
The centerpiece of the July 13-17 Hollywood & Entertainment Signature Auction was Mark Hamill’s screen-used Luke Skywalker lightsaber from Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. The prop, which included the severed hand effects rig from the Cloud City duel with Darth Vader, sold for $3.75 million.
Heritage said the result set a new world auction record for a screen-used Star Wars prop. The sale also pushed Heritage’s total for the week to $14,098,033 across five days of bidding.
The lightsaber was one of the most recognizable items in the auction because of the scene it came from. It was used during the climactic duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, the sequence that ends with one of the most famous reveals in movie history. For Star Wars collectors, it represented a rare chance to buy a screen-used artifact tied directly to one of the franchise’s defining moments.
The auction also strengthened Heritage’s position in the Star Wars collectibles market. The auction house now says it holds records for the most valuable screen-used Star Wars prop, the most valuable Star Wars filming model and the most valuable original Star Wars artwork sold at auction. The filming model record belongs to the screen-matched Red Leader X-wing Starfighter, which sold for $3.135 million in 2023, while the Star Wars artwork record belongs to Tom Jung’s original half-sheet key poster painting for Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope, which sold for $3.875 million in 2025.
The sale went well beyond Star Wars. A Wicked Witch of the West hat worn by Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz sold for $550,000. The black conical hat is one of the most visually recognizable pieces from the 1939 film and became one of the top results of the week.
A cocoa-colored top hat worn by Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory sold for $350,000. The hat came from one of Wilder’s signature film roles and added another major Golden Age and family-film collectible to the sale’s top results.
Heritage also sold one of the rugs from The Big Lebowski for $343,750. The rug has become one of the most famous props from the 1998 cult classic, largely because of its role in the film’s running joke about tying the room together.
The auction included major pieces from film, television, music and pop culture history. Heritage described the event as an unprecedented assemblage of significant entertainment artifacts spanning nearly a century.