S.D. Studios FRWL Attaché' Case
thespyboys11
Lindenwold,NJPosts: 1,845MI6 Agent
The ‘Holy Grail’ of James Bond props is featured in the latest Ewbanks Auction site.
A good friend of mine is letting go of his S.D. Studios Attaché’ case. This is one of the very early numbers of the case numbered 008.
The case up for auction has been supplemented with a vintage ‘Bug Detector’ used by Bond in his hotel room to scan for any bugging devices.
It is complete with all the accessories including series of resin .22 cartridges that fit inside the hidden ammunition tubes.
The auction also includes a 74 page booklet that I put together detailing the attaché’ case including rare, never before seen, photos I personally took of the case when we visited Desmond Llewelyn at his home while doing research for the replicas construction. It shows detailed photos of the interior mechanisms under the tray.
It is a rare instance that these turn up for auction.
Below is the link for those interested in looking at the case.
Comments
To all you lucky prop collectors that own one of the original S.D. Studios attaché' cases...the current one up for auction has sold for 16,700.00 GBP which is approximately $22,700.00 US Dollars. With a buyers premium of 30%, the buyers will be paying about $30,000 USD!!!!!
So, in case of fire, grab your wife, your dog and the case on your way out!!!! --Ed
the spyboys Facebook page
What on earth happened to that case??? It looks a right mess but when you see it in the movie it looks in pristine condition, even when the case is bumped around a bit.
Desmond told me that he carried the case with him to different exhibitions and that, at one time, the lock broke so he used to wrap Duct tape around the case to keep it closed. Of course, when the tape was ripped off, it took a bit of leather with it.
Also, all the real props he carried around with him were just thrown into the case without any protection. As the case was handled, the bits inside simply scraped away and tore up the inside to shreds!
He basically destroyed it. --Ed
the spyboys Facebook page
In my opinion SD didn't do the attache justice and considering it is not a licensed product, fetching that sort of money is crazy :D
I would love to see a case made as the original, that good that it could be displayed next to the original.
I have no doubt that everyone involved in the making of a movie see the props they have to interact with as just work product items and never give it a second thought when production of the movie is finished. Months and months of painstaking work go into making props and after a movie is made, more often than not the props are badly mishandled which pains me to see that happen. Over the decades I have seen many articles, interviews and documentary's on props from such iconic films and tv programmes such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Indiana Jones, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Battle Star Galactica, Dukes of Hazzard to name a few, on the back story of how the props came about, the design, the designer and the prop builders/model makers and time and time again many iconic props are just discarded as though they were trash, very badly stored or very badly handled over time. Props that the fan community would love to take position of and keep safe.
The attaché case is a very iconic piece within the Bond movie and it's a damn shame that Desmond did not take better care of it.
well...it was well under the upper estimate 😁
That one did pretty badly. The seller would only have gotten £12k. Which isn’t a great price considering what past ones have sold for.