Somebody Spent Over a Million Dollars for Some C-3PO Head

I spent a fair amount of time working at Comic Conventions. From 2010 to around 2013 (give or take), I was hired to conduct interviews at conventions, but soon learned that I was really there to sell comic books. The website I worked for would get some people for me to talk to, but that number dwindled as time went on, and soon I was just hawking other people’s books. Mornings were spent going to other booths, collecting storylines for 10 to 15 cents an issue, and then flipping them for 20 to 30 bucks.

While I was bummed that my work was being taken advantage of and what I was hired to do became less and less of my job, I learned a very valuable lesson: some things are just worth whatever people will pay for them. The collections I was selling cost me maybe 50 cents to assemble and would go for 60 times that because people didn’t want to do the work of flipping through long boxes, or they simply didn’t know that was an option. Years later, I would work for an antique comic book dealer (for significantly less time) and see the same activity, but in the millions.

The antique dealer made the whole endeavor feel even more ridiculous and ruined comic book collecting for me. For one, I was never really someone who collected books to sit in a plastic container on my wall with a stupid grade on it. I want to read them. Secondly, the dudes that ran the place were complete jerks who were high off of their own inflated sense of importance. But lastly, it just took the joy out of it all. These were fun things made for kids that suddenly had to be taken very seriously (I was once told the job was like espionage), and had large dollar amounts attached to them, even if it was something as silly as C-3PO’s head.

That wasn’t something that was sold at the place I worked (though they did have movie props occasionally). Instead, it was through an auction by Propstore (via THR). The head, from The Empire Strikes Back, has light-up eyes and sold for $1,058,400. I love Star Wars, but I genuinely hope someone is eating soup out of it, because that’s an absurd amount of money to pay for something like that. It turns something generally light-hearted and commodifies it. So, at least show that you aren’t going to take that seriously.

Another element that I came across often in my time selling collectibles is that people were often trying to purchase some element of their childhood. I understand that to a degree, but life is about making new memories and having new experiences. So, if you did buy that C-3PO head, at least do something memorable with it. Don’t leave it in a glass case on your wall. Bring it out on a date. Take it to see a movie (maybe the one it’s from). Or, hell, take some inspiration from the headline that I definitely didn’t write misleadingly on purpose. You’ve got the money, get weird with it.