Prop gun from my favorite movie of all time sells for $270,000 at auction.
The irony being that, since it appears to include the serialized part of a gun (the receiver of a bolt-action rifle) that is not torch-cut to BATFE specs, this sale would most likely have required an FFL if it was across state lines. Hope all them i's were crossed and t's dotted...
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Over a quarter mill for one prop gun? Holy cow! Thanks for sharing this one. It boggles the mind.
And it doesn't even work. Notice the slapped-on barrel UNDER the ejection port of the receiver instead of being in line with it? Then the magazine feed butts up directly under the barrel. How, praytell, would a round get loaded into a barrel that is under and below the action of the receiver?
And shooting it with broken fingers really throws off your aim!
Isn't it also an SBR?
Yes yes yes, we all know the problems with it . . . but it's still the coolest movie gun ever. Ever, I say.
Cooler than John Wayne's Peacemaker from The Shootist. Cooler than the chain gun from Predator. Cooler than . . . everything else, maybe cooler than everything else put together.
Why is it everyone picks nits about this Dick Special, and just says, "Hmm, flying cars, okay"?
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe". "Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion". " I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate". "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain". Yeah.
But still, maybe second best movie of all time. A really good second best, but... "I'm shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here"."Remember, this gun is pointed right at your heart". "Ricky, that is my least vulnerable spot". "Major Strasser has been shot, round up the usual suspects".
Although Red Heat would have to come in somewhere in the top ten, just for hoots. I don't think I've ever seen a movie with so many great one-liners. And what's the book value on a Soviet Patparine 9.2mm magnum?
I thought the thing was Steyr bolty receiver and enough of a frame and barrel of a Charter Bulldog .44 Special revolver or somesuch to be TWO guns.
I wonder if one gun a month might have to be considered at the receiving FFL?
NJT there's a form you can fill out, get notarized, and turn in to MSP that you get designated as a collector and are exempt from the one gun a month thing. Granted collecting that would be out of my price range. It's ncie to think of all the nice Smiths I would get for that much, and some full autos too.
"I thought the thing was Steyr bolty receiver and enough of a frame and barrel of a Charter Bulldog .44 Special revolver or somesuch to be TWO guns."
Nope.
The gripframe/triggerguard of a Charter is not the serialized part, similar to most single-action revolvers.
That's just cra2y. Absolutely nothing justifies this price tag, unless the buyer just has to have sometnig that Harrison Ford sweated on during the movie.
In which case, it's cra2y.
But SOMEONE wanted to pay $265,000...
Can't tell from the photo, but if it's *permanently modified* so you can't attach a barrel, it's thus also *permanently modified* so it can't be made to fire, and that should be Good Enough to make it Not A Gun.
(Hopefully they also welded or soldered the firing pin in place or the hole shut, depending on how the Steyr's build.)
Torch cuts are just the easiest way for someone doing mass-dismantlement for ensure the part is Permanently Incapable without running into trouble. I don't believe that they're strictly *required*.
Many of the old scifi prop guns we based on real firearms, look at Starwars, Han Solo’s blaster (broom handle mauser), Storm Trooper blaster (Sten), Storm Trooper heavy blaster (MG42)
Not to mention their helmets and armor, from the German Stosstruppen (Storm Troops) assault units of the first world war.
They recruited exceptionally large men who had been in the trenches for most of the war, had been multiply wounded, and who were more attached to their dead comrades than the replacements who took their places. Men who had been naturally selected as berserker killing machines.
Then they gave them the oversized, 35 pound sniper's helmet, heavy silk bulletproof vests, Bergmann-Bayard submachineguns, and satchels of grenades. They made an impression.
Ol' Darth was the embodiment of the Nazi Boogie-man, and the uniforms of the Death Star personnel were pretty much straight Kraut.
"Storm Trooper blaster (Sten)"
If I were some kind of SciFi movie geek, I'd point out that the Stormtrooper Blasters were Sterlings... ;)
I read somewhere that this gun was cobbled together from a revolver (don't know which kind) and the Steyr receiver (totally non functional). Supposedly the gun could be "opened" to put blanks in the revolvers cylinder. Could very well be classified as a gun.
Here's a link to someone who talked to the original prop guy who built the Blaster. It was a charter arms .44 bulldog
http://www.steinschneider.com/props/blade_runner/bldrunbl.htm
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