Prop Store has put a host of costumes and props on display at the BFI IMAX before their next auction in London on September 20. Greg D. Smith went along and had a chance to chat with Prop Store’s general manager Tim Lawes…

How long did it take to sort all this out?

A long time. Months and months of work goes into getting the catalogue together. In fact we’re already getting the catalogue together for next year’s sale, so it gives you some idea, and obviously months of planning to choose the items that we are going to exhibit and work out how they’re all going to fit into the cases.

How do you decide what to have? There is such an eclectic mix of everything here.

We’ve got about 250 lots here, of 600 in the catalogue. It’s a balance between getting things here that are the most interesting and most valuable, but also things that are going to have a more general appeal as this is open to the public. We want everybody to walk through here with their pushchair with their kids and they just want to see something that they all know, so there are items from Forrest Gump, and Star Wars – things that people will all recognise no matter what.

It’s tough trying to narrow it down, because everything in the catalogue is pretty good, and to fit it all in to this catalogue is quite a job.

What’s your favourite item that you’ve curated here today?

My personal favourite thing is the Bubba Gump cap from Forrest Gump. I don’t know why, I just love it. It’s certainly not the most valuable thing here but it’s the piece that appeals.

I think the most valuable thing I’ve seen here so far is Han Solo’s jacket from The Empire Strikes Back

It’s one of the most valuable things that we’ve handled in the history of the company, so it’s a very significant item.

What makes that stand out?

A number of things add to the value. It’s from the original Star Wars trilogy which is, really, the most popular franchise there is. More people ask for things from those films than any others. Then you’re talking about a principal cast member’s piece of wardrobe which just do not come to market…

And then obviously it’s Harrison Ford, Han Solo. Everyone loves Han Solo,

It’s The Empire Strikes Back which is many people’s favourite, and it’s a jacket he wears for the majority of the movie. It’s also screen matched – which means there’s unique details on that particular garment that you can match up on screen. If you freeze frame the movie, there are stitching lines and things that are unique to that jacket that you can see on screen, so that is absolutely the one on screen.

All those things together, it’s like a perfect storm of value.

Whose job is it to go through all of those stitching lines on the freeze frame?

We all volunteer for that (laughs). No we’ve got guys who all they do is look through the DVDs and Blu-rays and do research.

How do you acquire a piece for an auction like this?

It’ll come from a number of sources. We get things direct from studios and production companies. We also get stuff from wardrobe companies, special effects houses, and crew members. Then there’s also individual collectors and individual crew members. But anything that comes in, even it comes directly from the studio, or even from an actor, who might come to us giving us his costume that he’s actually worn in the movie, we don’t take his word for it, we still go and do the research.

Was that jacket the most difficult item to get?

No. With the Harrison Ford jacket there was a lot of luck involved. It was a very long process of research. We tracked down a costume house that had bought stock but the owner of the company had no idea what Star Wars even was. He had actually had a big fire, so he wasn’t even sure what he had left, and he was going out of business and selling it all. We went down there and found this one and only Star Wars piece on all his rails – we were looking for more generic cast members’ costumes but found this. We recognised it immediately for what it was. He had nothing else of any value, and a couple of months later it would have just been gone because he would have liquidised the company. So a lot of stars aligned to make that a reality.

Other things just literally walk in through the door: somebody knows what they’ve got, they make a phone call saying, “I’ve got this, can I bring it in?” and they do and it is [what they say it is], and then we go and sell it for them.