It’s amazing the lengths fans will go for a little piece of their favourite movie – but would you drop thousands of dollars on Obi-Wan Kenobi’s sweaty rat tail?
The creepy little rat tail that Ewan McGregor wore when he played a young Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Phantom Menace has just gone up for sale and fetched a cool $3,154 AUD.
Think about that for a moment: someone dropped over THREE THOUSAND big ones of a frizzy plait that was clipped to the back of Ewan McGregor’s head in 1999. That’s a lot of money.
The description of Kenobi’s Padawan braid on Prop Store Auction reads: “The long braid is made from brown synthetic hair and features two bands of red thread and two bands of faux-gold thread.”
“The braid shows signs of production sue, including glue remnants at the top, minor wear and loose strands of thread.”
Which basically translates to: old fake hair plaited and kept in a box until someone paid three grand for it.
It’s not the first time a film buff has dropped big bucks on crazy movie memorabilia. In 2016, the dress Marilyn Monroe wore during her performance of ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’ to John F. Kennedy sold for $4.8M USD.
In 2013, the original 1960s Batmobile was sold for $4.5M USD, and in 2014, the Cowardly Lion costume worn by Burt Lahr in The Wizard of Oz was sold for a whopping $3M USD.
While these are clearly prized possessions for avid fans, the world of movie collectables isn’t always as glamorous beneath the surface.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, more than $1M USD of movie memorabilia was stolen from a Californian public storage unit last February. Items that were taken included the hero’s shield from Captain America, Robert Downey Jr.’s mask from Iron Man and a set of X-23 claws from Logan.
The report states that the movie memorabilia business has become extremely lucrative in recent years, with experts “estimating it has ballooned from $20M to $40M in annual sales a decade ago to $200M to $400M today.”
Suddenly $3K on a dirty rat tail doesn’t seem so crazy.