Miniature ’Star Wars’ X-wing gets over $3 million at auction

A miniature X-wing Starfighter used in a “Star Wars” film sold for over $3 million during an auction over the weekend of items both collected and created by longtime Hollywood model-maker Greg Jein. The Red Leader X-wing Starfighter that was used in the 1977 film “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope" sold for about $3.1 million after a bidding duel between two collectors, the auction house said. Jein, who grew up in Los Angeles, was still early in his career when he led the team that created the mothership for Steven Spielberg's 1977 film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The model that appears gigantic in the movie is just over 5 feet long and now part of the collection at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. A small preliminary model, which is about 5 inches long, brought in $55,000 at the auction. Lou Zutavern, Jein’s longtime friend and shop supervisor, said that he and Jein always had “a ball” working together.