A model of an X-wing fighter, which was used to film the climactic battle scene in the 1977 Star Wars, sold at auction Sunday for $US3.135 million ($4.9 million), far exceeding the opening price of $400,000 and setting a record for a prop used on-screen in a Star Wars movie, according to Heritage Auctions.

Not bad for a model spaceship found buried in some packing peanuts in a cardboard box in a garage. Friends of Greg Jein, a Hollywood visual effects artist, discovered the X-wing stashed in his garage last year after he died at age 76.