After watching eight seasons of the epic saga Game Of Thrones, fans can now enter what may be a competition on par with the battle for the Iron Throne, an auction of prized memorabilia from the HBO series.
Fans can now bid on costumes, props, set pieces and memorabilia from the hit show that ended in 2019.
More than 2,000 items, including a melted version of the coveted Iron Throne, distributed across 900 lots will be on the auction block in October through Heritage Auctions.
The starting bids range from $500 (€452) to $20,000 (€18,118) for items as famous as Jaime Lannister’s full suit of armour and sword, to props as granular as prosthetic teeth used for the White Walkers.
Other notable items include Daenerys Targaryen’s memorable cloaks, coats and leather outfits (some that feature dragon chokers and accents) worn by Emilia Clarke; Jon Snow’s notorious Longclaw sword wielded by Kit Harington, and the Hand of the Queen Pin worn by Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister.
Even items that did not boast much screen time, like the bell wielded during Cersei Lannister’s walk of shame or bloodstained garb from the infamous Red Wedding, are expected to draw fans’ attention during bidding.
Jay Roewe, HBO’s senior vice president of global incentives and production planning, said the auction was a chance for fans to “grab a piece of history”.
“Game Of Thrones was a zeitgeist moment in our culture. It was a zeitgeist moment in high-end television. It was a zeitgeist moment in terms of HBO,” he said.
“This is something we all grew up with. It’s impacted every single one of our lives. It’s impacted the culture, and Game Of Thrones has meant something to every single person.”
Although the series started in 2011 and several items in the auction date back to then, they have not been “collecting dust”, Mr Roewe said.
HBO had been carefully preserving thousands of props, costumes and set pieces since the series began for use on potential spinoffs or sequels.
With House Of The Dragon having recently completed its second season and other projects firmly in development, while others have been discarded, Mr Roewe said the studio now knows what they will need to hold on to and what they can part ways with.
“These items have been curated and taken care of since we finished filming. They are the quality that they were when we finished filming, and we’ve had people working on them for years to keep them in shape,” he said.
“We don’t need them any more. It’s time to finally open it up to the world.”
Beyond the preservation and quality of the items, the sheer scale of the auction required months of collaboration with HBO and countless hours of research and planning to organise, said Joe Maddalena, the executive vice president of Heritage Auctions.
Mr Maddalena wanted to ensure fans and collectors did not feel there were any “glaring holes” in the collection by including a wide variety of characters’ costumes and props, displayed in a 750-page catalogue.
There are even multiples of crucial items like Arya Stark’s rapier Needle, of which there were several versions throughout the series’ run.
The intricate nature and craftsmanship of the costumes and props are part of what make the show so memorable, Mr Maddalena, a fan himself, said.
Emmy-winning costume designer Michele Clapton has been praised since the series’ start for the detailed and intentional designs that fuelled storylines.
The catalogue features interviews with Ms Clapton, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and several of the cast members commenting on the episode-specific usage and significance of hundreds of the items.
Mr Maddalena called this kind of access and information “uncharted territory” in the auction world.
“You don’t usually get studio-sanctioned auctions like this. This is studio sanctioned,” he said.
“Everything comes from the archive. Everything was handpicked, scene specific. You know where your piece was used. You know it was actually used on screen.”
For fans who want to snag a piece of Game Of Thrones, the vast collection is now open for preliminary bidding, and the auction will take place between October 10th and 12th through Heritage Auctions in Dallas, in the US.
The collection will be available to preview in the auction house’s New York and London offices from September 17th to October 4th.
