FROM SPACESHIPS TO 'BATMAN' PROPS, A HOLLYWOOD MODEL MAKER'S CREATIONS & COLLECTION UP FOR AUCTION

From an early model of the iconic alien mothership from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to a complete Stormtrooper costume from “Star Wars,” bidding opens on thousands of pieces Hollywood model maker Greg Jein collected over his lifetime, including many he created during his nearly half-century career.

The collection amassed by Jein, who died last year at age 76, will be offered up by Heritage Auctions next month in Dallas. Jein, who had an Oscar and Emmy nominated career making miniature models, was also a collector of costumes, props, scripts, artwork, photographs and models from the shows he loved.

“He spent his entire lifetime in a movie industry at a time when practical effects and models were the way that magic happened,” said Joshua Benesh, Heritage’s chief strategy officer. “They were the way that spaceships traveled through outer space. They were the way that aliens came and visited Earth. They were the way that catastrophes and disasters were depicted.”

Jein, who grew up in Los Angeles, began his career in the mid-1970s, and over the decades worked on movies including “The Dark Knight Rises,” “The Hunt for Red October” and “Avatar.” A fan of “Star Trek” from the start, he later worked on pieces for the franchise.