Game of Thrones may have ended in 2019, but one of the biggest TV-related auctions of recent times has only just begun. Preliminary bidding is now open on some 2,000 items, presented in 900 lots, from the fantasy blockbuster. The sale will be concluded on 10–12 October, so there’s plenty of time to browse online, or in print if you can get your hands on a copy of the 750-page catalogue (your roving correspondent has spotted at least one on eBay already, going for $100). Organised by Heritage Auctions and the show’s maker, HBO, the auction includes every kind of prop and costume imaginable, including some that would have barely registered with even the most devoted viewer. From Jaime Lannister’s gold right hand to the flayed face of Walder Frey, Arya Stark’s Valerian steel dagger to the helmet of The Hound, there really is something for everyone.
It is too early for the bidding to have got going in earnest, but the hot-ticket items won’t come as a surprise: so far the highest bids are for Jon Snow’s sword ($31,000) and the Iron Throne ($26,000). Rakewell thinks it responsible, however, to point out that the latter – described as a ‘seat of power […] only rivaled by Captain Kirk’s command chair from Star Trek’ is only a ‘touring’ version, ‘used for promotional events’ such as Comic Con. For those after a more Benjaminian aura, we recommend trying to snagging the ‘Melted Iron Throne’ from the final season, currently lagging behind at $5,000.
‘Game of Thrones: The Auction’ may be particularly extensive, thanks to the participation of HBO, but it’s not the first of its kind. While the Stark family’s range of wolf-themed wear may be just the thing for dressier occasions, some of the other greats from the era of peak TV – The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad – have provided less fantastical options. We’re not sure we really understand what made anyone fork out $65,000 for Walter White’s copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, but most collectors will, at one time or another, have followed their heart rather than their head. And what could be more practical than a police jacket worn by Dominic West’s Jimmy McNulty in The Wire – sold in October 2018 for $3,350, with the funds going to the Baltimore school system?
Meanwhile, your correspondent finds herself drawn to a fetching foam head of a direwolf (‘non-bloody version’). The connoisseurial heart wants what it wants.