sold the striped jacket Dick Van Dyke wore as Bert in Mary Poppins for $4,370. Fast-forward to 2022, and the same coat brought in $200,000 at Heritage Auctions. Experts put such results down to the adoration of fans who’ve turned these objects into cultural touchpoints. “They are the remnants of characters and moments in time that are not otherwise available in tangible form,” Benesh adds.
Typically, objects from long-running franchises are considered grails. Last year, a Red Leader X-Wing Fighter model that appeared insold for $2.375 million. And in 2021, the Ressikan flute Patrick Stewart played as Jean-Luc Picard on TV’sA Red Leader X-Wing Fighter model that appeared inBut collectibles that have left planet Earth in real life are, understandably, even more valuable.
Which explains why, last year, when the auction house sold astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s personal collection, the went for a record-breaking $2.7 million. Before that, the most paid at auction for a lunar-flown object was the $2 million that Neil Armstrong’s gold Robbins medal fetched in 2019. Given their scarcity and historical significance, these artifacts require greater due diligence than Hollywood collectibles. A 2012 federal law declared all space-flown objects the legal property of the U.S.