I couldn't believe it, but there it was, an auction at Christie's auction house. Oh it was no ordinary auction. As a matter of fact it was one of the biggest auctions that they ever had. The thing that I found so unbelievable was the fact that they were auctioning off great Star Trek props. I had mixed emotions about this auction, being a closet trekkie myself. To me the auction meant that the Star Trek series was finally finished after 40 some odd years and this made me very sad. On the other hand, some of the greatest Star Trek items would now be in the hands of collectors who would preserve them. Maybe somewhere in the distant future a piece of Star Trek memorabilia will turn up and people will try and figure out what it is.

Enterprise Telephone
Photo Source: Me

Even many of the actors from the different Star Trek series were involved, one way or another, with the sale. I remember hearing Patrick Stewart of Star Trek The Next Generation fame saying he was very tempted to purchase the captain's desk he used to sit behind until he came to his senses and realized that the desk was only a prop and not a real desk. The bidding had blown away the officials at the auction house. For example, there were many models of spaceships up for auction. These items are rare because cgi (computer generated graphics) are used now in most science fiction shows and there are no models. The auction house thought that the items would bring a nice amount of money, but they never dreamed of the amounts that they would command. Models that they thought might fetch up to $12,000 brought over $100,000 and sometimes a lot more than that. You couldn't buy the smallest thing unless you were prepared to spend some big bucks. About the only exception that I know of is one of the Star Trek badges which went for $200.00.

Christie's had gotten some Star Trek experts together and had them go the warehouses at Paramount and pick out, what they considered to be, the 1,000 most important pieces. It took months because there were so many items to choose from. Apparently they did a great job. One model, the Enterprise D, brought the unbelievable price of $576,000. Every item was sold and the total that the auction brought in was said to be an amazing $7,107,040. This broke every record for Star Trek memorabilia. When everything was added up, it was found that the items sold brought far more than expected. Some say double, but it seems to me it was even more. A spacesuit worn by the character McCoy in an episode known as the Tholian Web, from the original Star Trek series, actually brought $144,000. Even a non working flute from the episode The Inner Light, Star Trek The Next Generation, brought $48,000. I can't be sure but I think that this had been expected to bring about $2,000 at most.

Let's look at some of the items that were up for sale. Want your own spaceship? A good start would be the console from the original Star Trek series. Yep that was there along with a very comfortable looking captain's chair. Looking at the chair, which had no caption by the way, I think it was from the Star Trek series Enterprise. There were tons of costumes for sale and these were just the ones that were memorable and had been worn by actors. There were many different masks that represented the different alien races that were on all the different Star Trek series and futuristic weapons of all different kinds. The omni present tricoder was available at the auction in it's small format as were three sets of Vulcan ears. Borg suits were represented along with one of Data's arms. In case you are not a trekkie, data was an android that served on the Enterprise in Star Trek The Next Generation. There were even a few props for sale that didn't look futuristic such as the copy of the Mona Lisa. This was from a Voyager episode.

Voyager Christmas Tree Ornament
Photo Source: Me

Star Trek was an amazing series. The original Star Trek was not considered a hit. It started out on the wrong foot when the star, Jeffrey Hunter died after making the pilot. Hunter had fallen down the stairs in his home and died in the hospital of a brain injury, he was only 42 years old. In truth this man was a much more talented actor than William Shatner and this might have changed the ratings on the original Star Trek series. I guess we will never know. After Star Trek was cancelled, it appeared a few years later in reruns and the next generation of kids made it a rerun hit and it spawned all those other Star Trek series and movies that we have all seen. The last incarnation of Star Trek, Enterprise, just didn't have it. It lasted 4 seasons, but it was not as popular as the series before it. I have seen every episode of that show and I could see some of what I thought were problems with it. First of all, it didn't seem to follow those long held beliefs that the captain was always a nice guy and that the Vulcans never showed emotions. It even became somewhat of a serial after awhile, where you had to follow the story from week to week instead of having those individual stories that all of us trekkies liked so much. As for the captain, I remember one episode where he needed a part for his engine so that he could achieve warp speed to try and save the Earth. He stole it from some aliens, leaving them to face a 3 year journey back home through a pirate infested area of space. This was practically a death sentence. Would Kirk or Picard have ever done this? The Vulcan science officer was constantly showing anger and other emotions while they were saying that Vulcans had no emotions, this made no sense.

I wish that I could have afforded to buy one of those models for old time's sake, but the prices were far out of my league. I am waiting for the Christie's catalog to be delivered to me, I hope that there are still some left and I don't get a "we are sorry we are all out" letter as I just ordered it on February 20, 2007, months after the auction. I ordered it from a Star Trek store that claims that have them. It's not much compared to what was sold, but it is a 2 volume set that has every item for sale pictured in it with a caption. If I get it, it will take it's place in my Star Trek cabinet among all my other precious Star Trek Items such as my Star Trek phaser, encyclopedia, watch, badge/communicator, replicates of different ships, my Hallmark Enterprise Ornament, shuttle Ornament and all my other Star Trek possessions. Yeah I am a closet trekkie and proud of it.