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By Maria Puente, USA TODAY
Christie's next week will sell a spaceship-load of Star Trek stuff in the first — and probably last — official auction of artifacts from the TV series turned pop-culture phenomenon.
CBS Paramount, which owns the Trek franchise, has decided to sell more than 1,000 of the tens of thousands of costumes, props, weapons and set dressings accumulated during the production of five live-action series and 10 theatrical films since 1966, when William Shatner's Captain Kirk first uttered his now-familiar "Space, the final frontier" on national television.
Trekkies, who are famous for their mania for collecting, are said to be over the moon at the chance to bid six-figure sums on Kirk's Starfleet uniform or that holy of holies, the Starship Enterprise-A model.
"Smaller collections have come on the market before, but this is the largest, the only one from studio archives and from all the films and series, and it's the 40th anniversary, so there's definitely a fervor about this," says Cathy Elkies, Christie's director of specialty auctions.
The entire hoard, grandly titled 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection, will open for public viewing Saturday at Christie's Rockefeller Plaza in New York with the auction Oct. 5-7. Buyers also will be able to bid live online at Christies.com. Throngs of people are expected; some might be in costume.
Christie's is betting the sale will be huge, and the $3-million-plus estimated take probably is conservative.
Why? Because contrary to reputation, Trekkies are not just geeks with too much time on their hands. After all, Paul Allen collects Star Trek. In 2002, he bought Kirk's captain's chair from the original series for $250,000 for his Science Fiction Museum in Seattle.
"There is not a stereotypical Star Trek fan; they represent a wide spectrum of the population — attorneys, doctors, engineers, teachers and astronauts," says Denise Okuda, who with husband Michael worked on the series and films as scenic artists and wrote The Star Trek Encyclopedia.
The Okudas were hired as auction consultants and for the past six months have combed through five vast studio warehouses to pick out "the most valuable, iconic and coveted" items for the sale.
The Okudas expect that the items most prized by Trekkies will be the spaceship models, costumes (Elkies says some surviving cast members are interested in buying theirs) and behind-the-scenes items such as costumer's continuity notes.
How high could bidding for the40 Years of Star Trek auction go?
Christie's auctioneers aren't sure. "We have nothing to compare it to," says specialty auction director Cathy Elkies. "Plus, you can't quantify the Star Trek factor — that's the magic in the room." USA TODAY looks at some of the items thought to be highly coveted:
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The Enterprise
Enterprise-A, the 8-foot model originally made for visual effects in 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture and seen in six Trek movies, has a $15,000-$25,000 estimate.
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The iconic flute
Certain props pluck emotional chords in fans, such as the brass Ressikan flute (pre-auction estimate: $800-$1,200 with case) that was played by Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) in 1992's "Inner Light" episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. "That's the item people say they really have to have, because it's so iconic to a much-beloved episode," says Denise Okuda, who co-wrote the auction catalog.
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The captain's chair
Kirk's chair, the highlight among the set dressing pieces, is a replica made for the 1996 Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations." It has an $8,000-$12,000 estimate.
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The Romulan Warbird
A miniature visual effects model of the Romulan Warbird (pre-auction estimate: $8,000-$12,000), used in episodes of "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine."
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Picard’s Starfleet Uniform
Captain Picard's Starfleet jumpsuit, a style worn in the first season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987), comes complete with a Starfleet communicator badge and four pips on the collar, indicating his rank. Accompanied by a pair of black leather boots inscribed "Patrick Stewart," the lot is expected to sell for $6,000-$8,000.