It started with books. At around age 11, I would buy anything that said Star Trek on the cover. My first collectibles were The Making of Star Trek by Stephen Whitfield, Bjo Trimble’s Star Trek Concordance and Franz Joseph’s amazing and largely made-up Star Fleet Technical Manual. Then I got my first autograph: a used copy of The World of Star Trek, signed by David Gerrold. I got all those at Bakka in Toronto, one of a triumvirate of stores on Queen Street West that included Silver Snail and Dragon Lady. Then the dealers’ room at an Ad Astra convention opened my eyes to a wider world of Trek memorabilia.
And my collection has grown since then. Like a lot of collectors, I have gone through phases — Gold Key comics, cards, plates, models, autographs. I have all of the main autographs any collector wants, and a bunch of rarer ones. I own all the Gold Key comics and all the older cards (except the 1967 Leaf black and white set, which almost no one owns) and a lot of the newer ones. I have many of the plates, most of the Playmates nine-inch figures, and almost all of the Enterprise models worth owning.
I now concentrate on anything that dates back to those few years in the 60s: an original story outline or pitch, a production memo, or a rare autograph from a behind-the-scenes person like Gene Coon or Sam Peeples. I have some good items from back then; I would like more.
My home office is a 360-degree tribute to the best TV show ever made. Here are some stats:
Autographs: 130 TOS signatures (not including official cards, see below), almost all obtained in person. Some notable signatures, which will all get their own blog post, include:
- Pretty Maids All in a Row wrap-party artwork, Gene Roddenberry and Bill Theiss
- Star Trek wallpaper poster, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy
- The American Cancer Society poster, Nimoy and Shatner
- The infamous “Heineken refreshes” poster, Nimoy
- January 1967 Ebony magazine, Nichelle Nichols
- Rodan lobby card, George Takei.
Novels and other fiction: 121. I own every novel from the very first, the terrible Mission to Horatius, until Crossroad from 1994, when varying quality and a busier life caused me to lose interest in the novels. I also own all the Blish and Foster episode adaptations and the complete set of Foto Novels, plus a few random books from after 1994, a few TNG novels, and a few William Shatner novels. All of those are in paper; I also have a number of ebooks.
Reference books: 131. I love behind-the-scenes information, and I have every Star Trek TOS reference book, biography and autobiography worth owning.
Plates: 22. Some plates have wonderful artwork, some not so much, but they are all tough to display so I don’t own many.
Cards: I have complete sets of the 1976 Topps cards and the 1979 The Motion Picture cards (both with stickers), all the TOS movie cards (including The Wrath of Khan 5×7 cards), a reprint Leaf set, and most of the significant sets that followed. I stopped collecting cards after a while because the number and rarity of costume, autograph, quote, artwork and other cards make it a tough category to complete.
Autograph cards: Of the 20-plus official autograph cards I have, the notable ones are Alexander Courage, Matt Jefferies, Herb Solow, DC Fontana and Leonard Nimoy.
Models: I love the Enterprise. I have:
- the gorgeous Polar Lights 32-inch model
- the Dinky Toys disc-shooter
- the Art Asylum/Diamond Select 16-inch
- 1701
- 1701 refit
- 1701 battle-damaged Star Trek II edition
- the Franklin Mint 25th anniversary metal ship
- the Eaglemoss XL 1701 and 1701-A
- the Eaglemoss XL XCV-330 Enterprise prototype ringship
- a promo inflatable Enterprise-A from Star Trek IV, hanging in the corner of my office
- an Enterprise talking alarm clock
- and the Art Asylum NX-01 and Eaglemoss XL NX-01 plus the prototype NX-class refit. These are rare non-TOS collectibles, because I love that ship.
Plus the pewter Franklin Mint Romulan warbird and a bunch of model kits I have never assembled.
And I own a few hundred magazines, every wall calendar from around 1976 to 2015, all the Star Trek Poster Books, a complete run of the Inside Star Trek and Spockanalia fanzines, etcetera.
What I do not have: Anything directly related to two of my Star Trek heroes, Wah Chang and Matt Jefferies, and any screen-used props.
Donations are welcome.
Collecting Trek 