Bid Long and Prosper
CBS Paramount is unloading thousands of costumes and props, stuff that was stuffed away for decades in handful of warehouses around LA. To give us a preview (before the exhibition opens to the public Saturday) they had spent the night uncrating and setting up some of the more iconic items. The only problem: the "vulcan ears" hadn't shown up yet. Traffic had delayed their arrival from the warehouse. I still remember seeing Leonard Nimoy on a talk show 40 years ago showing off his fake pointy ears. I had really hoped to try on a pair, but they didn't make it in time for us.
Christie's is also preparing now for what will be a much more important sale for them: a major auction of Impressionist art that will bring in hundreds of millions of dollars. But the staff was clustering around the Star Trek stuff like the props were the real masterpieces. This morning a group of Christie's IT guys came down to check everything out. They gathered around a Star Trek "communicator" and excitedly were comparing it to their cell phones. Forty years ago it was just science fiction, but amazingly Gene Roddenberry got so much right.
The "bridge" from the Enterprise drew the most attention. You could see the jaws drop as the staff walked in the room. It was so big, Christie's almost couldn't fit it in the building. Basically, its a few long pieces of plywood with plastic nobs on it that look like gumdrops, but when you stand in front of it you are literally "transported." Christie's has put a $20-30,000 estimate on it, but they really don't know how high the bidding will go. It's an awesome set piece. It would look great in the rec room, but I couldn't even afford the shipping to get it home.
