Westeros

The third and final day of the Heritage Auctions Game of Thrones prop and costume auction drew to a close, and did so with a bang (we’ve recapped Day 1 and Day 2 in previous posts). Mid-way through the auction of the last ~300 items, an auctioneer announced that it had now become the 2nd highest grossing Entertainment prop and costume auction in history, and was now chasing the legendary Debbie Reynold’s auction of 2011. While it did not meet that number, it came close with a total of $22,115,719 in sales including the buyers’ premiums.

And a big chunk of the $8.5 million raised on that final day came in the form of the touring Iron Throne which went for a whopping $1.49 million dollars. An absolutely stunning sum, by any measure, especially when you consider that HBO made more than one replica throne for exhibitions and tours… and that for a brief time you could order your own replica through the HBO Store for a cool $30,000. I strongly suspect we’ll be seeing another Iron Throne put to auction in the future, given this result.

Could this throne, displayed at Stockholm’s Royal Armoury back in 2014, be the same that sold at auction? A close inspection comparing it to Heritage’s photos certainly show no obvious diferences, but as we said, there were multiple of these and they may well all have been pretty exact replicas!

Of course, a lot more sold than just the Iron Throne. Here’s a quick recap of everything that hit over six-figures:

• Daenerys’s frozen lake ensemble - $156,250.
• White Walker ensemble with hero ice sword - $162,500.
• Arya Stark battle ensemble - $187,500.
• Daenerys’s white fur coat - $125,000.
• Tyrion’s Blue Doublet
• Jaime’s Winterfell Ensemble - $100,000.
• Map of Westeros from season 8 - $125,000.
• Daenerys Targaryen’s Suede Ensemble with reproduction dragon chain - $112,500.
• Cersei Lannister’s red velvet dress - $137,500.
• Dany’s death ensemble - $187,500.
• Melted Iron Throne - $175,000.
• Finale Kingsguard Ensemble - $137,500.

The auction was an enormous success, especially in a historical context. A couple of details leapt out at us as we watched the three days. Most notably, just two bidders were responsible for some $10 million+ of the total sales at the auction, which is simply incredible. Two extremely well-heeled fans went well out of their way to get a hold of as much as they could.

The 2nd highest priced item, however, did not go to them—the “hero” Longclaw that went for $400,000 was sold to an Internet bidder rather than the two big dogs in the hunt… but that person, considering just how much money was thrown around at the auction, has perhaps prudently already made it clear that he or she will take offers on their acquisition. They could easily make $100k or more from turning around and selling it.

It was a pretty amazing three days. Congratulations to all the winners! I’m sure that Ryan Condal and David Mandel will be talking about this—and maybe Dave will reveal if he did, in the end, bid on anything (Ryan seemed quite firm that he had more than enough Westeros in his life and was not looking to add more)—in a forthcoming The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of podcast. You can see their first look at the auction and their discussion of what they forecast would do well below: