HOW HAN SOLO’S $1.3M 'STAR WARS EMPIRE STRIKES' BACK JACKET WAS SALVAGED FROM OBSCURITY FOR PUBLIC PROP AUCTIOn

In a few weeks, Star Wars superfans worldwide will be battling for the galaxy’s ultimate bounty—Han Solo’s original jacket from The Empire Strikes Back.

The iconic piece of memorabilia—worn by Harrison Ford in George Lucas’s Star Wars: Episode IV—is set to be sold off to the highest bidder on September 20 at the Prop Store’s annual Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction.

Made in the 1970s by Caledonian Costumes, a small tailoring company that is now defunct, the jacket is predicted to sell for between $650,000 to $1.3 million. A hefty but expected figure, justified by a successful screen match which proved its authenticity as the very jacket worn by Han Solo as he arrives on Bespin.

The nearly 40-year-old jacket is the first piece of Han Solo clothing to be auctioned off in the history of film memorabilia. And if it were not for the diligent detective work of Prop Store CEO Stephen Lane, it may have faded into obscurity, left on a rack inside a costume house somewhere in Los Angeles.

“We're constantly on the treasure hunt, trying to find and track down where these, almost ancient artefacts have ended up,” Lane told Newsweek. “We're often trying to uncover where they've gone and what the journey has been after filming.”

Caledonian Costumes made the Solo jacket for Lucas’s production and rented it to the movie’s crew. After filming wrapped in 1979, the item went back to the costume house where it disappeared for decades.

“We found out that company had gone bust in the late 80s,” Lane said. “They had sold their assets to two different costume houses.