Tuesday, February 4

Just a few hours left to buy an original graveyard cross from Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE (1979)


A supposedly original three-foot tall cross from the graveyard scene in Lucio Fulci's Zombie (Zombi 2) (1979) is ending in about fifteen hours over on Yahoo! Auctions Japan (auction link here). The translation is rough, but it states the cross was one of four obtained from the film's prop master, who also worked on The Gates of Hell (Paura nella città dei morti viventi) (1980), during production on location in the Dominican Republic. Three rusted nails, a signed Certificate of Authenticity, and typed history of ownership is included.

The provided details of its history are sketchy. The cross was apparently owned by "Adam Park", a "famous UK horror collector" and writer for a "famous European horror magazine", who received it along with the other crosses/nails from "Robert Kirsch" (or Karsh?). Kirsch, hired by producers Ugo Tucci and Fabrizio de Angelis, was the prop maker who fashioned the crosses for the sequence. The seller also claims to have another cross that was damaged, but the one in this auction is in perfection condition.

Of course, with a non-returnable "Buy It Now" price of about $670US (¥68,000), you'd have to have balls of steel to take such a chance on two bits of wood tacked together. That's probably why it still hasn't sold, even after being re-listed several times over the past few weeks. If definitively proven original, it's certainly something special, despite not appearing exactly screen used. Using Yahoo! Auctions outside of Japan is impossible without a forwarding service like Jauce or Rinkya. Even then, there's a learning curve and all sales are final, even if the item arrives destroyed. So this dubiously "one of a kind" piece will probably remain in Japan for now.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are ways around those services but you have to be lucky enough to have a friend who lives in Japan and speaks fluent english :)

Kev D. said...

This would make one expensively ugly piece of whatever to have on display in your house.

...do you dare tread upon the staircase?

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