Upcomming Events

[earthcrusher]

IN THE WORDS OF AUSTIN POWERS IT IS GOOD TO LEARN THE HARD WAY BABY HE HE HE HA HA HA

[umbra]

earthcrusher said:

IN THE WORDS OF AUSTIN POWERS IT IS GOOD TO LEARN THE HARD WAY BABY HE HE HE HA HA HA

Oh, behave! [In the words of Austin Powers. ]

[earthcrusher]

HEY I JUST HAD AN IDEA BUT ITS NOT APPROPRIATE HERE ILL IM YA

[Dragona]

earthcrusher said:

I TOOK YOUR DARE!

Wait a minute... You did? which thread? I don't remember seeing it...

[earthcrusher]

nothing much going on on this thread

[Niemz]

10.10.2006
Christie's Star Trek Auction: 40 Years in Three Days

UPDATED 10/11/06

For a complete printable list by lot #, item description, pre-auction estimate, final sale price click here.

Who knew Star Trek was so big?

It was, simply, an amazing three days as Star Trek rocked 20 Rockefeller Plaza, the location of Christie's New York and the "40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection" auction. And if you count the viewing of the auction items at Christie's from October 1-3, plus the auction itself on Oct. 5-7, it adds up to a pretty incredible week in Trek history. This auction was the culmination of about a year's work from the folks at Christie's, Paramount/CBS, Michael and Denise Okuda, Dave Rossi and many others behind the scenes.

"It was really a year in the making," says Cathy Elkies, Director of Special Collections at Christie's and also a first-rate auctioneer. "We first met with CBS Paramount last fall, won the contract in January and were then off to the races. It was an incredible thrill to work with such incredible pop culture artifacts. Christie's has long been the house of choice for 'iconic collections' and Star Trek certainly fits the bill. Its place in American pop culture made it a truly coveted collection. The scale was another story! This was a large auction by Christie's standards but frankly it took 1,000 lots to tell the entire Star Trek tale."

And with these 1,000 lots of never-before-released official Star Trek contents from the CBS Paramount Television studios, the auction offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fans and collectors to own a model, costume, or prop from the fabled archives. With a final tally of $7,107,040, with 100% of the items sold, virtually every lot exceeded its catalogue estimate. The auction made more than double the pre-sale expectations.

The people at Christie's knew it was going to be a hit when proceeds surpassed the entire auction estimate after only the first day. A perfect example of something blowing out its pre-sale estimate was the Enterprise-D shooting model which fetched, after fees, $576,000 on the final day. This sets a new world auction record for Star Trek memorabilia. Oh yeah, its pre-sale estimate? Between $25,000 - 35,000! (See the bidding here.) "The auction was a raging success and really exceeded my (very high!) expectations," says Elkies.

What also made this auction special was the introduction of a new source of bidding, courtesy of the internet and Christie's LIVE® technology. This meant that hundreds of online bidders who could not be present or wanted to remain anonymous could simply send their bids into the "room" and participate in the auction with a few mouse clicks. The old-school methods were also still in play, though — as a pre-registered bidder you could phone in, be present and raise your paddle with your registration number, or send in a pre-auction bid specifying the maximum price you will go on a certain item. (These days, if you scratch your head by mistake during bidding you should be O.K.!) We should point out that many of the saleroom attendees, people manning the phones, were in Trek costumes.

The crowd was a mixture of fans and collectors, mainly from the United States and Europe. One particularly animated group of men had pooled their money and rented a viewing room upstairs, the equivalent of a sports "skybox"; they would come running into the room whenever an item of interest came up for auction. All those present contributed to each day's entertainment and excitement that perhaps many of you saw at home courtesy of the History Channel and their history.com website, which streamed the auction live. (You may even still be able to catch it on repeats, but just this week only. After that it will be going going gone.) To further immortalize this event, there will be a documentary early in 2007 featuring auction highlights. The doc will also include all the people and the work that went into the making of this event, from the cataloguing of items, to the making of the catalogue to the setting up of the preview and more. Stay tuned to STARTREK.COM for more details as they become available.

Among the most expensive lots — not unexpectedly — were the models, which dominated the three-day proceedings. Nine of them made over $100,000 each, up to that cool half a million for the 78-inch long model of the Enterprise-D!

A notable costume highlight was Dr. McCoy's space suit from the original series episode "The Tholian Web," which sold for $144,000 and was the fourth most expensive lot of the sale. One of the most asked-about items was Picard's Ressikan flute from "The Inner Light, " which went for $48,000, against an estimate of only $800 - 1,200.

John Wentworth, Executive Vice President, Communications, CBS Paramount Television, says, "The ongoing passion and dedication of fans and collectors worldwide has impressed us yet again. We were thrilled to be able to bring them tangible, coveted pieces from our beloved Star Trek, and we are grateful to those who participated. They now own Trek history and have made this auction a huge success."

Elkies clearly enjoyed the experience. "I really loved every minute of it. The energy and enthusiasm we met with throughout the tour, viewing and auction was contagious. I have been auctioneering for over 15 years and frankly, it just gets more and more fun. Star Trek was a great opportunity to let your hair down and just enjoy the party."

And what a party it was!

The two-volume Christie's catalogue will be available at a reduced price of $60 for a limited period immediately after the sale — and can be ordered at Christies.com or at the STARTREK.COM store.

[earthcrusher]

Good read!