"Blade Runner" Set Decoration, ca. 1960
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GUEST:
It's a piece that my husband purchased out of California, through the internet, back in the year 2000, from set designers who did the set for "Blade Runner," which was everybody's favorite movie, still now. My husband was a big movie buff. He was also in television, as well as public affairs. As far as people you knew, and were with, they were people who graduated from movie schools in California. Movies like "Blade Runner" were uppermost. When he saw or heard that this picture was for sale, he went on the internet. My husband made an offer, they accepted it.
APPRAISER:
Do you know what he paid for it back in 2000?
GUEST:
Yes, it was about $2,650 with shipping. We've had it hanging in our home, and we think it's a fine painting, regardless of "Blade Runner," but with "Blade Runner" and everybody's love of it, that makes it really exciting.
APPRAISER:
Yes, now the question is how exciting, and that's where I come in. This has what we call a "cult following," so any time you have a piece that's associated with a cult following, it means we can go pretty deep into the film to find things that people are going to be interested in. And what I mean by that is, sometimes if it's a film that there's a spare number of people out there who like it, you need to have really key props in order to get some really serious interest in it. Other times, what we call "set dec," which this would be considered, set decoration, and oftentimes, we say set dec's not as interesting to collectors, just because it's in the background, and they don't really interact with it so much, but you see it. You do see this painting. It's in Harrison Ford's apartment in the film, as he plays Rick Deckard. And you can see it pretty clearly in the scene where he's kissing Sean Young, so that's great. The most expensive thing that's ever come out from this film was actually the hero gun that Harrison Ford used in, the blaster, that sold for $225,000, and that was in 2009. We had one of the painting specialists take a look at it, and she believes it may actually be a mixed-media piece. She thought-- it's possibly an enhanced print done with some paint and pigment. We're not exactly sure, but what they told us was, as a painting, it's probably not too old, it's probably from the 1950s or '60s. And it's probably not worth more than $500 to $700 as a painting, which, I know that you had a copy of the invoice from the set decorators when they bought it from a gallery in Beverly Hills in 1981-
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
in preparation for this 1982 film. And they paid $720 and change for it back then. Given the fact that this is such a cult classic, today, at auction, we would expect this to sell between $10,000 and $15,000.
GUEST:
Now that's-- that is really exciting. That is truly exciting. You know, when you hear people say they had no idea. And I really didn't, so this is a marker. This is wonderful. Wonderful. I'm thrilled.
APPRAISER:
You've got a lot of jealous nerds out there who would love to see this in their home.
GUEST:
Well, could be theirs at some point.
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