Indiana Jones Artifact Goes for $630K at Auction

A brown felt fedora worn by Harrison Ford—and his stunt double—in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom has a new owner. The hat sold for $630,000 at auction in Los Angeles on Thursday, the BBC reports. The makeup residue on the sweatband, which could have been left by Ford or Dean Ferrandini, was included. More impressive, the hat's inside lining has the gold-monogrammed initials "IJ." The fedora makes an early appearance in the second installment of the film series when Jones and others bail from a crashing plane, using an inflatable raft, then slide down a mountainside. At one point in the 1984 film, Jones risks his life to recover the hat.

The auction was handled by Propstore, a film and TV memorabilia company, per Gizmodo. The hat is a tweaked version of the one in Raiders of the Lost Ark, featuring a "more tapered" crown, and was made in London. It came from the personal collection of Ferrandini, who died last year. Propstore's description reads, "The fedora is made of sable-colored rabbit felt and features a dark brown ribbon and a leather sweatband imprinted with the Herbert Johnson Hat Company name and address, as well as a tag marked size 7¼ (size 59 European.)" The hat became so iconic that a tagline on a poster for 1989's The Last Crusade read, "The man with the hat is back!" (More Indiana Jones stories.)