5000 Quatloos at the Christie’s Star Trek Auction
Written by andy on Saturday, October 7th, 2006 in General.
Well, success at least for Christie’s and Paramount–not so for working joes like me who didn’t have $5,500 to spend on a set of “genuine” Klingon bat’leth swords. On the 40th anniversary of the orginal Star Trek series, Paramount Pictures, the owner of the franchise, has decided to sell off the props, costumes and models from all the series and the movies through Christie’s in New York City. The auction house has 1,000 lots to sell off today through October 7–and based on the first day’s efforts, it greatly underestimated what some people are willing to pay.
Like many others, I had hoped that bidders would arrive in costume, but only a few did, and they represented “hu-mons.” A Jean-Luc Picard lookalike in an early season Next Generation outfit showed up:
So, too, did Mr. Spock from Late Night with Conan O’Brien, in an original series costume:
Avery Brooks, aka Capt. Benjamin Sisko, made an appearance, but in 21st century street clothes. Full-scale models of the Enterprise-A and Enterprise-D dominated the front of the room.
The crowd may have dressed tamely, but it was ready to pay. The auction board flickered in perpetual motion as dollars changed along with the equivalent in euros, British pounds, Hong Kong dollars and Japanese yen (but wait, no quatloos?). Picard’s Enterprise-E captain’s chair, estimated to sell for $7,000-$8,000, went for $52,000. Two prop wine bottles of “Chateau Picard,” estimated to go for $500 to $700, sold for $5,500. “That’s probably a record for empty wine bottles,” the auctioneer quipped. The sale prices so exceeded the estimated price that absentee bidders–those who place a maximum and hope for the best–hardly stood a chance: I counted only two successful absentee bids in the first 124 lots.
Some notable items and sale prices, along with original estimates in parentheses:
-Borg alcove: $8,000 ($700)
-Borg mannequin: $9,000 ($800)
-Worf’s Klingon baldric sash: $3,200 ($300)
-Six Romulan Senate chairs: $1,900 ($800)
-Type 2 phaser from Star Trek: Nemesis: $3,200 ($1,200)
-17-inch tall latex-foam statue of Zephraim Cochrane: $5,500 ($500)
-Captain Picard’s black-and-grey uniform: $15,000 ($8,000)
-Borg cube model, 30 inches across (the small one): $80,000 ($1,500)
-Enterprise-E model: $110,000 ($12,000)
The high bids made me wonder just why people were willing to pay thousands of dollars for cast resin and foam. Successful marketing by Paramount? Do fans need to redecorate their homes? (No jokes about living in parents’ basement, please–these buyers can afford their own places.) Are they planning to turn a quick profit by re-selling items on Ebay? Is it pure nostalgia? Is it a belief that their purchases will have value one or two generations from now?
