More Coppola related items hit the auction block!
Years after Coppola’s infamous American Zoetrope bankruptcy auction, bits and pieces from American Zoetrope and Coppola related movies still find their way to the auction block.
Prop house mainstay, Propstore is opening a huge entertainment auction tomorrow and Thursday 27th August, with many items from classic and genre movies up for bids.
I’m a big fan of Propstore, I once visited their prop warehouse outside London, which was a dream come true and I also have many photos from prop exhibit displays they held at the Waterloo IMAX before the auctions went live. Seeing their catalogues increase with many more amazing items you never thought would be up for sale, Propstore are showcasing their latest Los Angeles auction across two whole days.
Aside from Phil Tippett cleaning studio house of his amazing creature and dinosaur work, there’s many items from the old genre standbys such as James Bond, The Terminator franchise, Aliens and Star Trek, as well as a few unique items from Ghostbusters and I smiled to see items from Mars Attacks listed too.
For Coppola related items, it’s always interesting to see what still makes their way to new bidders and film fans to own for their own collections as movie prop collecting has grown into a million dollar industry.
In the Los Angeles auction, soon after the auction goes live at 10am on Day One, they have an Apocalypse Now sound reel canister, estimated between $600-$800.
You may not have been able to buy a location from The Godfather, but you can own an outer wall piece of the Corleone Mansion, which in real moviemaking magic turns out to be gray foam handmoulded around a wooden base!
Talking of the Corleones, you can bid on Al Pacino’s Miami tan suit from The Godfather 2, reaching the limit of high bid estimates, starting at $15,000 to $20,000.
On Day Two of the auction, rounding up the Coppola related items, as Phil Tippett is cleaning out his famous design workshop, he’s releasing two Pinocchio maquettes from the unproduced Coppola version which never came to fruition. The timing of seeing these in the catalogue, strike me as ironic as there is a newly released Pinocchio which uses FX makeup from Italy’s Matteo Garrone and there will be an animated version from Guillermo Del Toro coming to Netflix, before Tom Hanks stars as Geppetto in a new live action Disney version. We’ll be spoilt for choice and these maquettes will remain as a curio for what Coppola’s version could have been like.
Finally, there is an Artist Proof of a book, Cinema By The Bay by Sheerly Avni, about cinema created in San Francisco, which has been hand signed by George Lucas, Francis Coppola and Saul Zaentz. Due to the signatures, it has estimated starting bids of $500-$700. I own the book (not the signed version!) and it is a wonderful and in-depth look at the independent filmmakers, their films they made and their vision of working in San Francisco.
I’ll be tuning in to see how these items amongst many others fare on the auction block and it’s fun to imagine what else will come up for sale one day! What would be your dream item to buy and have you ever bought anything at a real life auction house or are you like me and your bids are on ebay?
