Luke Skywalker’s Lightsaber and Severed Hand From Famed Darth Vader Duel Sold For a Record $3.75 Million at Auction

The item, which became the most-valued on-screen Star Wars prop ever sold at auction, was born from cast-off parts from a camera shop

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

July 17, 2026 5:11 p.m.

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Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, a coveted prop used in one of the most famous scenes in Hollywood history—Darth Vader’s shocking reveal as the young Jedi-in-training’s father—sold at auction this week for a record $3.75 million.

Initially listed for bidding at $1 million by Heritage Auctions, the Hollywood Reporter’s Chris Gardner reports, the famed weapon’s final price tag surpassed expectations. The final sale makes it the most valued on-screen Star Wars prop ever sold at auction.

“This is one of the most important surviving Star Wars artifacts in existence,” Joe Maddalena, executive vice president at Heritage Auctions, says in a statement. “Collectors understood that they were bidding on much more than a prop. They were competing for a genuine piece of modern mythology.”

The lightsaber was wielded by Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, in the climactic Cloud City duel against Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back (1980). The scene, one of the franchise’s most iconic, sees the supervillain deliver his famous “I am your father” line shortly after cutting off Skywalker’s hand, sending it and his weapon spiraling into an abyss.

The auction winner also received this severed appendage, which was created from a cast of Hamill’s actual hand. Red wounds are painted on the wrist, and the spring-loaded release mechanism that allowed for its quick detachment during filming is still present.

The lightsaber itself, which measures 10 inches long, is made from the handle of the flash that accompanied Graflex cameras. Roger Christian, who won the Academy Award for art direction: set decoration for the franchise’s first film, A New Hope (1977), is credited with bringing lightsaber designs to life after meeting with the manager of a photography shop in London.

“He pointed me to boxes of equipment that had obviously lain untouched for years,” Christian said in an interview for the book Star Wars Insider: Icons of the Galaxy, Boy Genius Report’s Vic Hood writes. “I started rummaging through them and found old lenses and rangefinders, pulling out anything I thought might be useful. I then discovered one old box under the others, covered in dust, that had obviously not been opened in years.”

The combined hand-lightsaber setup was the handiwork of makeup artist Stuart Freeborn, himself an Academy Award winner, who is also credited with having brought iconic characters Yoda, Jabba the Hutt and Chewbacca to life. The prop’s provenance is thoroughly documented, and Freeborn himself possessed the lightsaber until 1994.

Last year, the lightsaber’s dueling partner—Darth Vader’s lightsaber, also used in the Cloud City scene—sold at auction for $3.6 million.

Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber is part of a week-long Heritage Auctions sale that centers items from Hollywood, including props from The Big Lebowski and Bride of Frankenstein.

Christian Thorsberg | Read More

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.