With a weakened dollar and soft housing market, investors are electing in droves to put their money in an unlikely investment vehicle: Hollywood memorabilia. Just a month ago the Beverly Hills-based Hollywood memorabilia auction boutique Profiles in History trumped their all-time records by selling over two million dollars worth of collectibles when the final gavel sounded. Some highlights from the sales in recent years: $129,800 for the original Superman costume from the 1955 series, $304,750 for Captain Kirk’s USS Enterprise command chair, and $805,000 for the “Cowardly Lion” costume from the Wizard of Oz.

Before we start condemning such amounts as grossly in excess of any real value, the larger reality is that hard assets of all varieties are enjoying new wave of interest. History has shown that art prices frequently do not mirror the trends of the financial markets. Just after the 1987 Asian crash wiped out $323 billion worth of investor value, Sotheby’s of Hong Kong experienced a sale total of US $134 million, a full 13% over their estimations. “In an exploding market, estimates can be irrelevant,” opines Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby's European contemporary art chief.

While the price tag for Hollywood memorabilia certainly comes with sticker shock, consider it in relationship to the traditional art market. While the Euro and British pound rose nearly 5% in the past year, for many owners of select artists the returns seen for their works of art represent many multiples of this figure. Last year, Sotheby’s purchased six exceptional Peter Doig paintings for a total of $11 million in a private sale from Charles Saatchi, a former advertising executive and art collector, and sold a single one of them at auction for $11.2 million a few months later.

What’s driving much of this bubble-esque pricing? “[It’s] from hedge funds or Russia or China, or [it’s] old money speculation,” Westphal conjectures. A number of art funds have popped up in recent years, attempting to take advantage of the exceptional spurts of growth and perceived irrationality within the $5 trillion art market. The most noteworthy of which was founded by Philip Hoffman, who formally chaired Christie’s London finance department. These funds operate on the traditional 2/20 hedge fund model of taking 2% of principal per year in addition to 20% of the returns. While Hoffman represents one of the newest to come out and openly advertise the nature of his investing of institutional funds, alternative investment funds have been looking to art for much of the last decade. With art prices screaming upwards, more and more high-level executives are sacrificing their jobs to drink from the art world’s wellspring of profit potential. Randall Willette, formally the Citigroup corporate finance chair, now a director at the London-based Fine Art Wealth Management group, expects that “art funds will go a long way towards making art a mainstream asset class.''

These exceptionally high prices result from big-time investors beginning to engage the art market in earnest for the first time. Perpetuating such a school of thought is the widespread use of the Mei/Moses Fine Art Index, the brainchild of NYU business professors Jianping Mei and Michael Moses which charts the growth of art prices sold at Christie's or Sotheby since 1950. While the S&P 500 has offered better overall returns, art prices actually rose during market uncertainty, specifically during WWI and WWII.

Rather than sputtering out, time has proven that investment into high-quality, noteworthy works of art to have returned handsomely. Many pension funds which are considering dipping in their big toe find inspiration in the success of the avant-garde British Rail Pension Fund, which started investing in art in 1974. After liquidating their holdings in the mid-80s and early 90s the fund saw an annual, compounded return of 11.3%. This will no doubt attract large funds looking to score big profits in art, and by extension, increase the value of Hollywood collectibles.

So while a fan might be taken aback at the prospect of paying $200,000 for an original Star Wars light saber, a fund will be happy to invest in a sure bet.