The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Star Wars items taken off sale
Acollection of Star Wars memorabilia once owned by Chewbacca star Peter Mayhew and consigned for sale at auction has been donated to the actor’s widow after she made a public appeal.
Ryedale Auctioneers, based in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkeeshire, was due to sell the pieces on behalf of an elderly couple who discovered them in their attic nearly 25 years after moving into the property.
They included scripts, call sheets and clippings from the original Star Wars trilogy.
Auctioneer Angus Ashworth, who appeared in the TV series The Yorkshire Auction House, later discovered the items had been owned by Mayhew, who died aged 74 in 2019, after his widow, Angie, shared her distress at the sale on social media.
Writing on the Peter Mayhew Foundation’s Twitter account, Angie said she had previously lived in the property with her 7ft 3in husband, but when they found a new home his “movement challenges” made it “impossible” for him to get into the attic.
She added: “It really breaks my heart to see our belongings auctioned off like this by @angusashworth and @RyedaleAuction1.”
In a statement, Mr Ashworth said: “I was approached by a lovely older couple who were clearing their attic a quarter of a century after moving into their property.
“The contents of the attic included a bag of Star Wars memorabilia, which I thought might be of some interest to Star Wars fans.
“This wasn’t unusual – film memorabilia comes up for auction all the time and there was some subsequent press interest.
“The first I knew that the Peter Mayhew Foundation wanted to acquire it was following a tweet which garnered a lot of misinformed responses.
“The monetary value of the lot is fairly modest, but knowing how much it means to the foundation – and given that it had been in the attic for over 24 years – the vendors are quite happy to donate it to the foundation to have permanently within its personal collection, not for profit, so that fans can access these wonderful items in perpetuity.
“I can only apologise to all of the Star Wars fans who had already shown great interest in owning a bit of film history.”