'Pawn Stars' boss Rick Harrison pays a massive $34,000 for an iconic 'Star Wars' movie poster
“Pawn Stars” is a show where people with almost anything that seems vintage or unique can get a pretty good deal, while Rick Harrison always makes sure that negotiations turn out to be profitable for him. Although he doesn't loosen his purse strings easily, the 60-year-old once shelled out more than $30,000 for a poster of "Star Wars." He even got a tour of the iconic movie set before getting down to the details.
This wasn’t just any ordinary poster, otherwise, Harrison would never pay so much money for it. The seller was a man named Jason Joiner, founder of the Kurtz/Joiner Archive. It is an archive that collects the rarest Star Wars memorabilia. Joiner was one of the closest friends of Gary Kurtz, producer of the iconic film series. The two of them started the archive and had plans of founding a museum dedicated to Star Wars.
He showed Harrison a great many items, including Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber from Return of the Jedi and the original handwritten script of Star Wars by George Lucas. That script alone could fetch $5 million. However, neither of those was for sale. What was for sale was a massive poster of Star Wars with the signatures of a great many people who worked on the films, including the big three, who are Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford.
The poster also had Lucas’s signature on it and depicted Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, and the droids in the films. When asked how much it was worth, Harrison was given a figure of $50,000. This intrigued the 60-year-old, who made a $25,000 offer to Joiner. This was a lot less, and after some negotiation, a fee of $34,000 was accepted. That really was a lot of money for a poster.
Not all deals relating to Star Wars merchandise go as smoothly as this one. Sometimes, there is a huge gap between what the seller wants and what the buyer is willing to pay for it. On a different episode of the show, Corey Harrison met with a seller who wanted $6,000 for her massive collection of 20 Return of the Jedi action figures. Unsure of their total value, Corey called in an expert.
The expert carefully examined the pieces in front of him and pointed out the ones that were most desirable in the market at that point in time. However, when it came to valuation, he said that the whole collection was worth $4,250. That was not a lot less than what the seller was asking for, but Corey decided to play hardball. He said that he’d pay $500 for the whole thing.
This was way too little, but the 42-year-old said that it might take him a full year to sell all of them, and a lot of his money would have been tied up in it. Unfortunately, the guest did not want to part with the figures for so little and said no to the deal.
