Collecting Star Trek…

[Ssosmcin]

Gilligan’s Island was always absurd and the series was stupid enough to support the format change. The concept of celebrities on the Island was nothing knew, it was just that the execution was, well, ghastly. And, from what I understand, Gilligan's Island wasn't a failure. It's ratings were okay in its final year and a fourth season was planned. But Gunsmoke was cancelled and CBS president William Paley's wife was upset (Gunsmoke was apparently her favorite show). They needed another half hour on the schedule to fit in the hour long western, so Gilligan got the axe (Paley reportedly hated the series anyway). Gunsmoke went on to ratings success and lasted a full 20 years.

Almost nobody seemed to know how to approach reunion movies, especially when done by people uninvolved in the production side of the original shows. They always seemed to be intended as pilots for revivals instead of existing on their own. So, quite often we had to suffer through older versions of the characters with kids we never heard of and maybe a return of one of the antagonists in the series making trouble. That always sucks.

Well, almost always…

But seriously, The Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman, I Spy, I Dream of Jeannie, The Wild Wild West and a plethora of others…they just couldn’t capture the magic of the shows which spawned them.

 

[publiusr]

Star Trek Phaser Original with Communicator, Star Trek CCG 2000 Reflections UR Future Enterprise Foil PSA 9 Mint

That looks really nice

 

[Therin of Andor]

I couldn’t help but start thinking about collecting Star Trek stuff over the years and those things that resonated the most then and perhaps even still.

I came to fandom with TMP, but...

I still get a thrill when new Trek products break, or when I discover an older item that I never knew existed. Today, my brand new 8" Mego Andorian Ambassador Shras arrived. I have several versions of the older Diamond/EMCE Andorian, redressing some to make new characters.


Ambassador Shras and the Andorian Bookworm by Ian McLean, on Flickr

Re older items that I never knew existed:

I recently stumbled across a "Movieland" Wax Museum (long defunct) set of View-Master reels that features the "Star Trek" TOS bridge exhibit as one of its 21 paired images. I saw these wax figures in person, in January 1984, and had bought a packet of reels about the museum at the time. Coincidentally, I photographed them with a Nimslo 3D camera. Several decades later, I even tracked down the elusive packet No. 2. (I had been certain that it would include the Trek exhibit, but no.) But this third one, on the much later blister pack, was quite a surprise! It is even on the card front.


Movieland ViewMaster by Ian McLean, on Flickr

And then the weirdest items can become a Holy Grail if you can't find one for decades! The TMP ID Set:


"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" ID Set (left) by Ian McLean, on Flickr

My 2007 Palisades Toys' unreleased, unpainted, Final Engineering Prototype (FEP) pre-production sample of "Star Trek" creator, Gene Roddenberry, has arrived Down Under! So cool! I never thought I'd own this rare figure, nor that I'd get it for a steal on eBay, knowing how rare the boxed samples of Roddenberry and Kirk-in-chair were.


Palisades Gene Roddenberry action figure by Ian McLean, on Flickr

This book was impossible to find locally (Down Under), until the day that Amazon US started its second hand market, with searchable database! Yay! I had been willing to pay $100. With the searchable database, I found it for $1, plus airmail postage:


"Six Science Fiction Plays" containing "The City on the Edge of Forever" by Ian McLean, on Flickr

 

[Therin of Andor]

Star Trek Maps. It apparently sold poorly, and many copies wound up on bookstore remainder tables. So, today, it’s somewhat rare.

It went straight to the remaindered tables, because Bantam had just lost the licence and didn't want them in the warehouses. I bought mine for $AU 4.00.