Starship sales

[Unicron]

Selling ships is slightly different than selling missiles. While it can come back on you, it likely won't be an issues, since the old ship can usually be identified easily enough, and whatever systems were on it back in the day are either obsolete, or have been stripped and replaced with whatever the locals put on them. An 40 year old American crusier was a threat to the Royal Navy in the Falklands for a tiny bit. And Taiwan and many other countries have older American ships. Some sold after their service to the United States, and some build for sale to begin with. Or even build locally using the American designs (Australia I think was building American frigates for a time). Iran almost got four destroyers the Americans were building for hem before 1979 (Taiwan now has them after they served the United State for 25 years). Iran did get several F-14 Tomcats and Phoenix missiles prior to 1979. They were the only country to purchase those systems outside the USA. This was a reason why the US Navy didn't use the F-14 over Iraq all that much. The Iraqi were too use to them from fighting the Iranians for eight years.

Starfleet can likely make sure the ship's transponder is set so that they can easily check on old ships. And also keep weapons tech out of the hands of races that generall don't already have access to said weapons. Though they aren't above pushing a few weapon improvements that help Federation interests (they did aid the Cardassians in improving weapons technology against the Klingons and later helped the rebellion against the Dominion. More aid than they gave Bajor at first).

Indeed, and "The Next Phase" has a situation like this. The Romulans want a computer to replace their damaged one, and Riker and Worf privately agree that they should only have access to one three or four decades old that they're already somewhat familiar with. I can't recall if there are any other such mentions at the moment, but there probably are. I think SicOne has some valid concerns about letting potential enemies get too familiar with technology, but I'm also inclined to think that can be easily controlled by the owner's government.

I suppose one potential concern is what happens when a group that is poorer in arms or resources nonetheless comes up with a clever solution to turn an antiquated design into something more powerful. That happened during Prohibition when many rum runners took advantage of engines that had originally been commissioned for WWI fighters that were no longer in service, and they put these engines into boats so they could head offshore to international waters. Those engines allowed them to outrun anything that law enforcement had for a time, until the police started doing the same thing.

 

[137th Gebirg]

There were those old Apollo-class ships in Unification that the Romulans stole from a yard. They had been in Vulcan merchant service prior to that, though supposedly Starfleet did use to use that class. Maybe they had been built for Vulcan, or maybe they were gifted after 30 years to Vulcan who used then for another 30 years then put them in a surplus yard.

The ships used in "Unification", IIRC, were older Vulcan ships and may not have been actual "Federation starships".

Those ships might not have been, although many (myself included) do consider them to be the apocryphal "Apollo class" of Starfleet origin as Ithekro mentioned. I agree that the origins of those particular ships are quite fuzzy and likely considered Okudaverse "soft canon". Regardless of any of that, there were a large number of other unquestionably front-line Starfleet ships in that graveyard, most notably a bunch of Mirandas, a number of the Excelsior study models and other bits of Springfield's, Cheyenne's and Nebula's that look like they came out of Wolf-359 (I REALLY would like to take a closer look at some of those other obscure ships and kitbashes, but not even TrekCore's HD caps really show much). It would stand to reason anyone with the right amount of latinum could come along and buy a "pure-blood" Federation starship (albeit completely de-militarized) for the right price, to answer the OP's question.

 

[Dukhat]

Those ships might not have been, although many (myself included) do consider them to be the apocryphal "Apollo class" of Starfleet origin as Ithekro mentioned. I agree that the origins of those particular ships are quite fuzzy and likely considered Okudaverse "soft canon". Regardless of any of that, there were a large number of other unquestionably front-line Starfleet ships in that graveyard, most notably a bunch of Mirandas, a number of the Excelsior study models and other bits of Springfield's, Cheyenne's and Nebula's that look like they came out of Wolf-359 (I REALLY would like to take a closer look at some of those other obscure ships and kitbashes, but not even TrekCore's HD caps really show much). It would stand to reason anyone with the right amount of latinum could come along and buy a "pure-blood" Federation starship (albeit completely de-militarized) for the right price, to answer the OP's question.

Well, count me in as one who doesn't think those old Vulcan ships were Starfleet's Apollo class, mainly because I think that listing in the ST Encyclopedia was just a mistake on Okuda's part. I prefer to believe that all Starfleet vessels share a design lineage of having saucers, nacelles, and (usually) a secondary hull. As these Vulcan ships do not share these attributes (and have never been referred to as Starfleet starships any time they've been shown on screen), I believe they are Federation vessels but not Starfleet.

 

[Timo]

...And since they appear to have (a suitably futuristif form of) the ring drive that retroactively is established as a native Vulcan thing, I'd vastly prefer for them to belong to a class that carries a suitably silly Vulcan name. Say, T'Boom?

Timo Saloniemi