Han Solo’s (Harrison Ford) welding goggles from Irvin Kershner’s Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Solo wore his goggles while he attempted to repair the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive in an asteroid, shortly before narrowly escaping the titanic space slug residing there.

Inspired by the concept of a used future, Star Wars creator George Lucas designed the original series to look dirty and dingy, with technology being constantly reused long past its prime. The Millennium Falcon is an old junk heap that runs on a wing and a prayer, seemingly held together with leftover scrap and her crew’s sheer force of will, always needing Solo to patch it back together.

To create a believable performance and reduce the need for visual effects, the goggles were designed for functional use and protected Ford’s eyes when he acted with a real, working welding torch during the scene.

Constructed from commercial off-the-shelf components that were readily available in the 1980s, the goggles consist of a black plastic frame housing two pairs of lens. The lens surround can be unscrewed; when doing so, it reveals that one of the lens pairs are made of tinted glass, designed to reduce the brightness of welding sparks. At the centre of the goggles, secured by a small metal fastening, is a brown faux-leather guard, moulded to fit Ford’s nose.

The goggles are displayed on a custom-made stand, but the elastic band that secured them to Ford’s head is no longer present. As a result of age and production use, the eyewear shows very minor paint wear on the frame and surface scratches on the lens. Dimensions (displayed): 14 cm x 17 cm x 25 cm (5 ½” x 6 ¾” x 10”)

£10,000 - 15,000