Movie Prop Collectors is proud to announce our first interview with our readers in our ongoing series called Collectors Corner.

Our first interview is with prop and costume collector, Jason White.

Jason and his brother, Darran house their collection in a secret location in their castle in the sunny state of Florida.

Jason a forum member here at MoviePropCollectors.com. was happy to share his knowledge of collecting, love of movies, and a few of his and Darrans iconic props and costumes with our readers.

You never know what you’ll find in JasonDarran’s muti genre collection.

Something from Mary Poppins or Tron?

You never know….

Let’s see what is up with the Moviepropking !

Jason with Michael J. Fox’s and Jason Scott Lee’s Back to the Future hero Hoverboards.

*All photos © and courtesy of Jason and Darran White.

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MPC: Welcome King. May I call you Jason?

Jason: No, but… “His Majesty” is acceptable.

MPC: Ok, Jason (lol). Can you tell everyone how you first became involved in collecting original props and costumes?

Jason: I would be happy to get off my “Royal Throne” for a few minutes to talk to my loyal subjects..

MPC: Lol. Ok, now tell us about how you first became involved with collecting props and costumes.

Jason: Back in the early 90’s I collected Star Wars collectibles. During that time, I came across an ad for a

publication called, “Toy Shop” which advertised props for sale. I couldn’t believe actual props from movies were for sale. Those were the good old days when you could pick up amazing pieces for pennies. Items now selling in the 10’s of thousands, were around 1k or less then. Then Planet Hollywood came in buying everything and the prices shot up.

My limit for the first 10 years or so was $150.00 per item, so I always wish I could go back in time and tell myself to save a few of those 150’s and buy a real nice piece.

MPC: Don’t we all, lol.

Jason and Darrans screen used Star Wars ESB Bossk rifle.

MPC: I know you and Darran are  big Star Wars fans. What was the first Star Wars props you encountered?

Jason: Oh yes. I remember at the time I was offered a Star Wars Lightsaber for just $1000. I did everything I could to save up for it, but I just couldn’t make it. I found out later is was a fake so I actually lucked out there!

MPC: Do you remember what your first prop or costume piece was?

Jason: Good question, but I strangely can’t remember exactly. One of the first pieces I bought was a Dan Akroyd shirt and tie from the movieThe Coneheads.

MPC: Do you still have it?

Jason: Well, yes and no. When we moved house  I stored it for a while in the new house’s barn which had a leak we didn’t know about, so it is kinda messed up right now. I’ll have to get it cleaned up and put it for sale one day. What’s a Dan Akroyd shirt from Coneheads worth nowadays, about $150? Lol.

Not everything goes up in price, 🙁

Jason with his dog “Buffy” (whom he loves and is not hurting in this pic), and his vast Xena collection.

MPC: Can you tell everyone how you acquire your props and costumes?

Jason: Being in the hobby for so long you make a lot of contacts so I’ve been making a lot of private deals lately. Other places would be auction house’s like Profiles In History, who have been the number one auction house for many years .

There’s also some great dealers out there and some not so great, a good friend once told me “The piece has to speak for itself”.

MPC: Profiles recent 3 day Hollywood Auction #40 made an astounding $5.1 million in sales.

Jason: Amazing. I really liked your preview video interviews with them.

Jason and his many hero screen worn costumes from Walt Disney’s Tron.

MPC: Thank you. What ways do you go about checking that what you are interested in purchasing is authentic?

Jason: Mostly experience, tracing the item’s history is also a good way. We have a database of studio numbers and a media center with over 3000 movies for quick viewing that has helped a lot. Matching up a prop on screen is always a good feeling. Research is a lot easier now with the Internet with sites like IMDB.com and all the prop collector’s forums and web sites such as your own. I would be real careful with eBay as it’s ridiculous how much that place is full of fakes. I also want to give a shout out to Rick Spector who we’ve learned so much from over all these years.

MPC: Have you ever had a problem with a prop or costume not being authentic, and if so, can you share with us what happened? What advice do you have for others to minimize this happening?

Screen worn Sulu costume top from the original Star Trek television series.

Jason: Oh yes, anybody that’s been collecting long time has been taken one time or another, my first few Star Trek props I ever bought turned out to be fake. This was years ago before we knew any better. A friend had purchased a phaser from a dealer and consigned it to an auction house where it was checked out as original. The dealer then told me he had another one, so I assumed that was going to be original too. Turns out he had taken a mold of the original and sold me a copy. Now I could tell the difference but back then it looked good.

MPC: Totally agree with you there.

Jason: Last year we were scammed out of a lot of money with a big prop deal, nothing to do with fakes, just a good old fashioned scam. That won’t happen again.

MPC: What happened?

Jason: That is for another interview entirely, lol.

Drew Barrymore puppet from Doppelganger & Star Trek Deep Space Nine Alien costume.

MPC: Lol, deal. Moving on, many collectors ask me what should I collect? I know we share the same views on this, so can you share with our readers how you feel about that question?

Jason: Well, whenever I see somebody answer that question, the #1 answer always seems to be “buy what you like”. Good advice, but it’s always missing a second part. I like to take it a step further. You can buy what you like and still make it a good investment. I’m a sucker for bad movies, if I bought everything I saw that I liked my collection would be full of pieces that nobody cares about and that has no historical value.

Now I also like Star Wars. So what’s the better investment, buying 5 props from say Scary Movie 4 (which I like for some strange reason) or a nice hero prop from Star Wars. Star Wars will win every time!

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