OT better than gold?
£308,000 for Starship Enterprise model after warp-speed bidding
By Catherine Elsworth in New York
(Filed: 09/10/2006)
A model of the Starship Enterprise from the cult science fiction series Star Trek was sold for £308,000, 20 times the expected sale price.
The 78in model, which made its television debut in 1987 and was also used in the pilot and title sequences of Star Trek: The Next Generation, was part of a collection of sets and props from 40 years of the screen franchise that attracted a frenzy of bidding from trekkies, as fans of the show are known.
The model of the Starship Enterprise from the TV series
The three-day sale of around 1,000 items from CBS Paramount Television Studios made more than £3.8 million, twice the expected takings. The buyer of the Starship Enterprise, which Christie's auction house had expected to fetch between £13,000 and £18,000, was a determined American collector who bid by telephone and kept his identity secret.
Hundreds of fans, dressed as characters from the series, packed Christie's main salesroom in Manhattan for the sale while staff donned Trek-style costumes to take telephone bids. Among the items sold were pointy Vulcan ears, elaborate masks and a model of a Klingon "Bird of Prey" ship, which made £214,000, more than 30 times the estimate.
The most paid for a costume was £104,000, for a Dr McCoy space suit used in the episode The Tholian Web.
A replica of Captain James T Kirk's command chair fetched £33,300.
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