Why Did Han Solo's Blaster Sell for More Than $1 Million?

A blaster estimated at $500,000 that sold for twice that

Rock Island Auction Company in Illinois held its Premier Auction from August 26 to 28, 2022. Lot 1247 was the DL-44 heavy blaster that Harrison Ford carried as Han Solo in Star Wars: A New Hope. The pre-sale estimate was $300,000 to $500,000. The final price was $1,057,500, a little more than double the top of that range.

Guinness World Records later listed the sale as the most expensive prop gun sold at auction, putting the amount at £904,342. The title covers prop guns, not movie props in general. It still says something about how many people wanted this particular object.

A German pistol from the 1890s under the science fiction

Underneath the sci-fi look is a real firearm: a Mauser C96, a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol designed in the 1890s. Collectors know it as the "Broomhandle" because of its grip. Mauser built roughly 1.1 million of them between 1896 and 1937, so the base gun was never rare.

The rest came from Bapty & Co., a London prop and film-weapons house. Its chief armorer, Carl Schmidt, built the blaster in 1976 from a C96 in the company's stock. According to HistoryNet, that pistol had already appeared on screen before. The barrel was cut down to 3.5 inches and finished with the flash hider from an MG 81, a German machine gun of the Second World War. A Hensoldt-Wetzlar Ziel Dialyt 3X scope went on top. The film's art department then added small decorative parts, which prop makers call greeblies, taken from aircraft to make the gun look futuristic. The finished prop fired blanks only.

Three blasters, one scope, and a teardown

Bapty first prepared two pistols, then built a third once filming was under way. According to the auction catalog, all three guns shared one real scope.

After filming, the blasters weren't put away as souvenirs. They were stripped of their greeblies, taken apart and returned to Bapty. The auction catalog says the pistols went back to something close to their original Broomhandle configuration so they could be rented out for other films, and it points to UK gun laws as one reason they were stripped down. To a prop house in the 1970s, a Mauser was a working tool to rent out again, not a piece of film history to keep in a case.

How one blaster came back

The pieces of Han Solo's gun stayed in Bapty's inventory, and for years the blaster was considered lost. Bapty changed hands in 2000. In 2010, according to Guinness, the new owner asked Carl Schmidt to dig through the archives and put the blaster back together. The scope turned up in 2010, and its mount base surfaced in 2018.

The catalog is careful about what that rebuild means. The Mauser was reassembled to match how the originals were first put together, and it keeps approximately 80% of its original components. Many of the small art-department details were never replaced. Guinness and the auction house call it the only survivor of the three blasters made for A New Hope. It would be more exact to say it is the only one that could be pieced back together. The lot came with its Bapty provenance and a letter from the BATFE approving its import for use as a prop gun.

Why the price outran a real tank

The price looks odd next to real military hardware. In March 2023, a 1960 Leyland FV4201 Chieftain tank sold online through The Market for $77,700, including the buyer's premium. The blaster brought about 13.6 times that. An M47 Patton tank from the Littlefield Collection sold through RM Sotheby's for $46,000, though it came without its engine or transmission. That comparison only works for common Cold War tanks. Rare World War II tanks are listed for far more, with one Panzer IV advertised at $2.5 million.

The gap makes sense once you look at what buyers are paying for. The Mauser is common and the steel isn't worth much. Collectors tend to pay for the parts that tie the object to one character in one film, and here those parts went missing for decades. Only three were made, they were dismantled almost right away, and just one could be rebuilt, mostly from its original components and with a documented history. That is likely why bidders pushed it so far past the estimate. As with most famous props, the price is for the story the object can prove.

Questions people ask

Was Han Solo's blaster a real gun?

Yes. The DL-44 was built on a real Mauser C96 pistol, a German design from the 1890s. Bapty & Co. in London modified it for the film, and the prop fires blanks only.

How many DL-44 blasters were made for A New Hope?

Three. Two were prepared at first, and a third was built during filming. All three were taken apart afterward. Guinness and the auction house describe the one sold in 2022 as the only survivor, and it was rebuilt from about 80% of its original parts.

Who sold Han Solo's blaster, and for how much?

Rock Island Auction Company in Illinois sold it at its Premier Auction in August 2022 for $1,057,500. The estimate had been $300,000 to $500,000.

Sources

1. Most expensive prop gun sold at auctionGuinness World Records · 2022-08-30
2. Harrison Ford's Star Wars gun blasts record as it sells for over $1 millionGuinness World Records · 2023-02-06
3. Premier Auction 86 catalog, Book 2, DL-44 lotRock Island Auction Company · 2022-08
4. Han Shot First: RIA Auctions Off Han Solo's DL-44 Heavy Blaster PistolThe Firearm Blog · 2022-07-18
5. Han Solo Blaster Sells At Auction for More than $1 MillionShooting Illustrated · 2022
6. Han Solo's WWI pistol sold at auctionHistoryNet · 2022
7. Harrison Ford's blaster from 'Star Wars: A New Hope' sets Guinness World Record at auctionFox Business · 2023-12-09
8. 1960 Leyland FV4201 'Chieftain' TankThe Market · 2023-03-27
9. The Littlefield Collection, M47 Patton Medium TankRM Sotheby's · 2014-07
10. How much it costs to buy a tankSlashGear

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