Founded in 1998, Prop Store has spent the last 20 years providing authenticated film and television production memorabilia to the collectors market. At NYCC 2019 I had an opportunity to sit down with Prop Store rep Chuck Costas to get the low down on their upcoming auction for Marvel’s Jessica Jones. I also gained some clarity around how the retailer sources their merchandise, and how competitive that process can be.
ComicAttack: Just to give us a little bit a background, why don’t you introduce yourself and let us know what you do at Prop Store?
Chuck Costas: I am Chuck Costas and I’m the VP of Business Development and Operations over at Prop Store. So I work with a lot of our key clients, including Marvel, and what we’re doing here is we’re actually doing an auction for Marvel’s Jessica Jones. This is actually our second Marvel television Live Auction. We did the first one with Marvel’s Daredevil, Marvel’s Luke Cage, and Marvel’s Iron-Fist back in August and it was really well received by fans so we’re following it up with one specifically focussed on Marvel’s Jessica Jones. So it will be over 400 items from the productions, seasons 1 – 3 that we’ll have across Set Dec, props, costumes. A variety of different things from the show so depending on the size of things that you can fit in your house you can get some really cool things.
CA: That’s actually pretty cool. So the products you guys sell, what’s your process for actually getting them? Are you working through a third party intermediary or do you deal directly with the studios?
CC: In this case we actually came here to Brooklyn, which is where they were filming Marvel’s Jessica Jones, went on the set after it had ended, was able to go out and pick out the items- Marvel allowed me to sort of select items that they thought fans would actually want, including her desk. There was only one of those desks, and I thought that was something somebody might want as their own desk at home and that’s a really cool, iconic thing. And so we worked with them to select the items that were in there.
Jessica’s Desk 
We bring them back to our facilities which- We are located in Los angeles and London, and in this case brought them back to Los Angeles. And we actually worked with the Prop-Masters and other people from the production while we were taking the things to understand the background of how these things were used, catalogue that information so that we have additional insight into them. And then we took them back and we do our best to screen match them to specific episodes and specific usage of those things. So as you know, there might be multiples of different items. One might be a stunt version, one might be an up close version. They’re all slightly different, but our goal is to verify that it was used in the production. Then we issue a certificate of authenticity, which Marvel co-signs, that you get with the item as well, which is kind of cool for posterity.
CA: What would you say are some of the most difficult Items to come by? What are the rarest pieces and have you ever been in the situation where you have to compete with cast members or production staff to get those key pieces?
CC: Interesting. You know, our policy is if the cast members or people who were involved in the production- It’s for them to work with the partner that they work with to select the items that they want to keep. There are also things for archives purposes that we also think is important. It’s important that a lot of these companies keep their items for posterity. We’ll put in requests for certain items that we would want. In this case, I think, some of the top items I wanted to make sure we had some for fans were Jessica’s classic black leather jacket costume. So we did sort of negotiate that up from and how many of those we might be able to include within the auction. So luckily we’ll have two of those coming out as part of this auction here. But we try to share the wealth, we’re not here to take everything. We want to have a good representation, a good selection of items. It’s like we were putting together a good museum exhibition for the fans as well.
CA: Do you find that on certain projects the celebrities that are involved are more likely to attach a certain significance to the memorabilia? Like particular franchises where it’s like, “We’ve wanted pieces from this franchise, but we weren’t able to get them.” Have you ever run into a situation like that?
CC: You know frankly, by the time we usually get involved, because we’re dealing directly with the studios, I think the negotiations between the talent, and far as their rights- So every actor may have a different negotiation, they may have something in their contract that allows them to get pieces of the production. Some of them may not and may have to negotiate it after the fact. So frankly, we deal with it after the fact.
Jessica Jones Costume 
Jessica’s Black Leather Jacket
CA: The reason why I ask that is do you know if any celebrities or talent have actually come through Prop Store to secure things they weren’t able to get working through the production?
CC: I’m sure they have. Publicly, I think it was great that the showrunners of season one of Marvel’s Daredevil and season three, they purchased items and put those out onto their social media accounts. They were able to purchase those. I’m not sure if they weren’t able to get it or not, but it was great that ultimately they decided that they wanted to be able to get those. As part of that, Prop Store was able to auction them, allowing them a chance to get those types of things.
CA: What would you say is the key advice to making sure that you find authentic pieces, but also for someone doesn’t know where to start and really doesn’t want to get scammed?
CC: I was kind of that way when I started getting into this. I was always a comic book collector, original art collector. With those things, there’s not as many counterfeits that are out there into the public or things that people can replicate and fabricate. I actually started buying things on Ebay, and I think that- I hate to say that’s a little bit of an unknown, because though people may offer certificates of authenticity are they really authorized to do that? Are they really the people who do that? I think that’s what’s great about Prop Store. Everything that we sell here, again, is coming directly from the source, is coming directly from Marvel. We’ve both certified that it is from the production and you’re going to get a certificate of authenticity that goes with it, so you can feel confident that that’s where it’s coming from.
Prop Store in general, when we offer items we, we do the research on each of those things to make sure, as best we can, to screen match or understand the lineage of sort of how it came. A lot of times we do get people that were involved in productions, especially way back in, maybe say the 80s. A lot of these things, at the end of production, there wasn’t a set way- It wasn’t like you went back into a specific warehouse and companies hadn’t decided what they were going to do with this, so a lot of times they did give it away, or people were allowed to take things, or it was thrown in dumpsters. There’s a lot of different things that happened. We try to track down that history of these items as part of our process. Sometimes we will reject a lot of items to say, “It’s dubious. We can’t guarantee that this is actually authentic, so we’re not going to sell it.” So by the time that we do offer something, it’s been through a vetting process and we offer our certificate of authenticity along with it.
CA: And that due diligence is value added on the consumer?
CC: It is, especially for movie props and collectibles. It’s a little bit of a unique part of a hobby, and you have to make sure that you’re doing your due diligence on that as opposed to buying something- Because there’s a lot of great people that fabricate some great things out there. There’s a lot of people that like to make props and do a great job of making something that looks very similar to what probably was used on screen, but there is a premium that is paid for something that was part of the production or something that was actually screen matched to something that was obviously made after the fact of made by a fan. And then there could be a huge difference between them.
CA: Do you find that there are particular prop houses or fabricators like WETA Workshop or The Jim Henson Company, that there are particular fans that really go after those?
CC: Absolutely, WETA I think is one where we were lucky that we just did the Warcraft docs and it had a lot of great WETA stuff in it. We also did The Great Wall recently as well, which I believe is all WETA. We find that, just because the way that they make things is so exquisite. I mean, there’s just a craftsmanship to their work that inspires fans to want to buy their work, no matter what the project was. So I do think there are fans of particular fabricators.
CA: So who’s your favorite, in terms of production and fabrication? Personally, if you would have a favorite, who would you say?
CC: Well I would say WETA would probably the top, being relative to some of the costume work I’ve seen out there. Super spectacular.
CA: Have you guys ever gotten a hold of the any of the Stan Winston stuff?
CC: Yeah, we’ve had some terminator. I think a couple of auctions ago we actually had a full-size Terminator from Terminator 2, which is pretty amazing to see. It’s also amazing to see what you think is metal is not actually metal on some of those things. But that’s part of movie and television magic.
CA: Would you say that collecting has a really reasonable bar of entry, or would you say that is can be pretty pricey?
CC: No, I think everybody, when they hear of auctions and they hear of collecting these things, they think of Luke Skywalker Lightsabers or StormTrooper helmets, which you know, might go for over a couple hundred thousand dollars. But that’s not where you start in this. I think an auction like Marvel’s Jessica Jones is a great place to start, because again, you know you’re getting something authentic. We’re going to start the bidding at $50 and it might only go for $100 or $150. You’re not investing a lot, but I think ultimately, just like with anything you collect, you should love what you’re buying. You shouldn’t just buy it as a speculator. You should buy it because you have some connection to that movie, that franchise, whatever it may be. That you want to own something from it. At the end of the day that you’re not so much worried about the money. Obviously, you want to protect your investment and having something certified will help protect that investment so you can sell it later on, if you need to. But, hopefully you’re buying for yourself.
Jessica’s Camera 
Jewel Costume 
Trish’s Heroic Hellcat Costume 
Classic Hellcat Costume 
Kilgrave Police Station Costume
We at comicattack.net would like to that Chuck Costas at Prop Store for taking the time to answer our questions and provide some insight into the world of collectibles from a retailer’s perspective. Prop Store’s auction for Marvel’s Jessica Jones is coming December 2019.
Christian Davenport
cable201@comicattack.net
