The Iconic Indiana Jones Hat Fetches Rs 5 Crore At Auction — Twice The Estimate

Actor Harrison Ford’s hat from the second Indiana Jones movie went up for over half a million pounds at auction. The price of the hat worn in Indiana Jones has surpassed its pre-sale estimate by more than twice. The Prop Store held an August auction of movie and TV memorabilia, with artefacts from Home Alone, Scream, Return of the Jedi and other films. The fedora was one of the highlights of the event. It was part of the late stuntman Dean Ferrandini’s collection, he was Harrison Ford’s double in Temple of Doom.

BBC reports that the brown felt fedora, which was created especially for the Temple of Doom movie, sold for $630,000 (more than Rs 5 crore).

The sable-coloured fedora was an upgraded rendition of the one that was worn in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the initial Indiana Jones movie. For the redesign, which featured a “more tapered” crown than the last movie, costume designers Anthony Powell and associate costume designer Joanna Johnston collaborated closely with Herbert Johnson. According to the auction house, producer George Lucas’s visual effects studios utilised the headwear for extra photographs.

The 1984 film, directed by Steven Spielberg, received two Academy Award nominations. According to the auction house, Ford or Ferrandini wore the hat in several of the most iconic shots from the film, such as the river scene and the scene with the yellow raft on the snow-covered mountain.

Early in the film, Jones, an ambitious archaeologist, is seen wearing the hat when he and his friends jump from a downed plane on an inflatable raft. The sweatband has the gold initials “I J” inscribed on it, a characteristic unique to the hats produced for the first three Indiana Jones films, according to the auction house.

An imperial scout trooper helmet from the 1983 Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi was also up for sale. It went for $315,000 (more than Rs 2 crore), while a light-up wand from Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was bought in a winning bid of $53,550 (more than Rs 44 lakh). In the meanwhile, a Daniel Craig outfit from the 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall brought $35,000 (almost Rs 30 lakh) at auction.