QMx is releasing a replica of the ringship Enterprise XCV-330 first glimpsed in TMP: http://www.startrek.com/article/first-look-u-s-s-enterprise-xcv-330-from-qmx 1500 bucks for that dinky 12in. replica!!! They're out of their freakin' minds. You could scratchbuild a model for a helluva lot less and make it bigger too. One of the negative aspects of Trek getting popular since the '80s is how much they try to gouge fans. Man, sometimes I really miss being a Trek fan in the '70s.
And there are people amongst our fandom's ranks who have the cash and will be willing to shell out for it.
Even though it would still be pricey I could see a price of about $200-250 for something like this, but no way in hell is it worth seven times that.
Actually, the price seems about within the range for something that's not mass produced. My question is, why that small?
That's who the target market is: two dozen hardcore fans with money to burn for duplicates of a movie prop. Aaaannd afterward, if enough people took the bait (err... those pieces sold), odds favor that there'll be more "limited edition replicas" at lower prices, either making use of the same mold they used to make these, or some cheaper-to-produce version.
Seriously, I love Star Trek, but I wouldn't pay even two hundred bucks for this. It's an interesting piece of pre TOS era history, but not enough for a dinky replica priced at hundreds of dollars let alone fifteen hundred.
I was looking forward to some of the other ships from the "Marcus' desk" like, but if they're all $1.5k, oh well. Of course, QMx promised a "collector priced" nuEnterprise four years ago, and that never materialized.
I couldn't help but notice that product description: "the XCV-330 fills the role of Earth’s first sub-light, interplanetary and interstellar space vehicle." Makes you wonder how long it took them to Alpha Centauri. I had always been under the impression it was an FTL spacecraft. Bob
The model looks gorgeous, no question - but the price tag is insane, just as the ones from Artisan Replicas. And as DEWline said, I simply don´t get how people are actually willing (and able) to pay that much for a piece of decoration. And obviously enough people so it makes sense for the companies to release overpriced model after overpriced model. This is quite beyond my capacity ...
And just what ARE the rings on this puppy? Passenger space? Drive system? If the only living space is in the pod, and half the pod is shuttle hangar (per Jefferies' sketches), there's room for maybe 20 people.
I've always assumed the rings were early massive warp coils. As they got smaller over time they eventually became nacelles.
My assumption (since First Contact, and possibly confirmed by the order of the desk models in Into Darkness) has been that it's a sub-warp ship, but an important stepping stone to full FTL warp drive.
When they had the Spaceflight Chronoly back in the early '80s it was erroneously designated as a space liner which was really fan speculation. For one thing it would have to be massive and it obviously isn't. My feelings about a lot of contemporary Trek retconning are known and since the ringship is post Cochrane's development of the space warp I find the sub-warp idea to be complete nonsense. I couldn't care less what First Contact, ENT and now this product description says.
Our feelings are compatible. I never believed that Zefrem Cochrane ("Metamorphosis") was an indigenous Alpha Centaurian but thought that he had invented warp drive in the solar system which led to ships like the XCV-330 which enabled the colonization of one of the planets near Alpha Centauri where Cochrane eventually settled and thus became an Alpha Centaurian. Bob
It was also slightly different. I would suppose that when Rick Sternbach did the artwork for that book he didn't have access to the image used in TMP as a reference and had to make up details. Chronologically it was set after the Romulan War, so if one wants to stretch things they could be considered two different ships of similar design. Drawings or paintings of it appeared in ENT, in the pilot bar and in the admiral's office. When the design this model is based on appeared in the Ship of The Line calendar, the backstory was that it was that it was an alternative warp test design, using Vulcan-style ring nacelles (which, production-wise, were themselves were inspired by the ring ship).
According to what? I don't recall any date being associated with the ringship (at least within canon Trek)?
She has the suffix XCV-330, and in each of the times she's been part of a wall mural or model progression, she's post Phoenix, pre-ECS/Earth Starfleet and about 20 years earlier than the NX prototype flights in 2138. Her being in service around the turn of 2100 to 2120 matches the date of Cochranes disappearance and just before the launch of the newer Intrepid and Delta type warp 2 ships. And also matches the much more grebble (spelling) laced mechanical look of the ECS warp 1.5 ships, about the time Vulcan would have had a larger hand in helping humanity to the stars, warp rings and all probably. This is largely from 2001 onwards, but the Motion Picture mural does support it anyway. Either way, that's a crazy price.