Iconic Bond Movie Pistol Sells for $431,840 at Christie’s

When is a 60s-era air pistol worth $431,840? When it happens to be the gun held by Sean Connery in promotional stills and posters for From Russia with Love, the second film in the hugely popular James Bond 007 film series. Yes that sinister-looking pistol, which some mistook for a long-barreled, 9mm Walther P-38, is actually just a single-shot pellet gun, a Walther .177-cal Luftpistole (LP) model 53 air pistol to be precise.



The $431,840 Movie Prop
Bond’s LP-53 recently sold at auction in London for £277,250 ($431,840 US) — nearly 14 times the £15,000-£20,000 price Christie’s Auctioneers had predicted. That just proves that there are many action heroes, but there is only one James Bond. Presumably, this shockingly high auction price may drive up the price of LP-53s on the used market. Sorry, there are no Walther LP-53s for sale on Gunbroker.com today… we checked.

Why was Connery given an air pistol? Here’s the story behind the choice of the the LP-53. As part of the publicity campaign for From Russia with Love, Magnum photographer David Hurn was commissioned to photograph Sean Connery as Bond — holding 007’s signature Walther PPK pistol. But the production crew forgot to bring a PPK to Hurn’s studio.



Photographer Used His Own Gun
According to Christies’ auction lot history: “[W]hen Connery arrived at his studio for the shoot, it was discovered by publicist Tom Carlile that no one had brought the gun needed for the shooter, a small Walther automatic (Walther PPK). By chance David Hurn practiced air pistol target shooting as a hobby and had the air pistol he used for this purpose, also a Walther, to hand. Hurn explained: ‘It was decided that, without telling Sean or the other representatives of United Artists, we would use my pistol for the pictures and [we] presumed that should anyone have doubts, [when they saw] the name Walther on the gun, they would be reassured. This was, in fact, the case.’”



Poster Designer Favors Look of Long-Barreled Pistol Over PPK
In theory…the long barrel of the LP-53 air pistol was to be airbrushed out of publicity stills and a PPK was to be substituted when the movie posters were designed. In fact, in one USA-market “James Bond is Back” poster, you’ll see Connery holding an airbrushed, short-barrel Walther. However, Renato Fratini, the lead poster artist, preferred the look of the LP-53. Working from Hurn’s non-airbrushed original photographs, Fratini designed the posters for world-wide distribution with the long-barreled LP-53 in Bond’s hand. The iconic long-barreled Luftpistole was featured in posters for several more Bond movies, including Goldfinger (Japanese poster at right), and The Man With the Golden Gun.

A pistol held by Sean Connery as James Bond in a poster to promote the 1963 film From Russia With Love has sold at auction for £277,250.



The Walther air pistol fetched more than 10 times its estimate of £15,000-£20,000 at Christie's in London on Thursday.

Meanwhile, a rare Darth Vader costume made for Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back failed to sell.

It had been expected to fetch up to £230,000.

The costume, which was being sold by a private collector from the US who acquired it in 2003, was believed to have been the first complete Vader costume to be offered at auction.

Another James Bond pistol, that appeared in 1974 film The Man With The Golden Gun, sold for £15,000.

Last month an American car enthusiast paid £2.6m to buy a 1964 Aston Martin DB5 - complete with revolving number plates, ejector seat and bullet-proof shield - featured in Bond films Goldfinger and Thunderball.

Among the other items sold at Thursday's Popular Culture: Film and Entertainment auction was a dinosaur model from the 1933 King Kong film that went for £25,000.

A metal box that contained the glowing red eye of the computer HAL from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey sold for £17,500

A pair of trunks worn by Christopher Reeve in the 1984 film Superman III failed to sell.