Week Five of the Star Trek auctions on eBay from It’s a Wrap Hollywood ended today with 82 of the 100 lots selling for a total of $45,918. It was a good week as there were many interesting items up this week, including costumes from Star Trek: The Motion Picture and a slew of cadet uniforms from the movies, Next Generation and Voyager. The top item of the week was the Seven of Nine Jumpsuit which was bid up to $5,032.99, but still didn’t hit reserve! This was just another example of over-estimation of the potential price by It’s a Wrap.Plus the costume was imcomplete (didn’t include the inner corset or the shoes).This is the second week in a row where a costume was bid up to over $5,000 without being sold, perhaps It’s a Warp will realize the rich people who were bidding at Christie’s are not bidding on eBay.
Prices continue to decline, buyers remain cautious
What is really interesting is that only 11 items sold for over $ 1,000, the lowest total since the second week (duringChristmas). This trend of price drops on common items will only continue over the next few months as the people who want certain costumes and props get them and essentially pull out. Already some ofthe top collectors say they are being very careful with their budgets as they are "pacing" themselves and the emotion and auction hysteria of the Christie’s auction is just not evident in the collector community. An example of this is how a Starfleet Voyager style uniform went for $ 449 (a total steal). The fact that neither the Seven of Nine nor a Star Trek III Starfleet Security Officer uniform hit reserve shows a lack of strategy on the part of It’s a Wrap. Speaking with Aaron Carlson, the high bidder on theSecurity Uniform, Aaron said "I will just wait till they put it back on eBay without a reserve as they have done with the previous items not to hit reserve". At this point, regular bidders know that an item that doesn’t hit reserve will show up two or three weeks later without a reserve. So what is thepoint of the reserve in the first place?
After lengthy discussions with some top Star Trekcollectors and analyzing the past few weeks auctions, two trends are clear. First, there is a limited pool of money out there and people are being careful what they bid on. I think this also speaks to people who bid a lot early and were no where to be found this past week. Second, prices will continue to decline, both due to this and the fact that there are lots of duplicates of costumes and people are starting to see that. Why over-pay, when you can waitand get the item when it comes around again?
Top sellers: week 5
| KlingonWarrior Costume | $ 2,225 |
| Star Trek: TMP Two Piece Uniform | $ 1,503 |
| Hirogen Hunter Costume | $ 1,384 |
| Starfleet Movie Red Uniform Jacket | $ 1,375 |
| Next Generation Worf 9th Place Trophy | $ 1,341 |
Now the week is the best yet
This week is clearly the best week yet. It is a combination of Voyager and "Nemesis" items and features over a dozen "Star" costumes. The biggest item being the Admiral Janeway costume from Star Trek:Nemesis, which is already up to $ 5,100! Also, every main Voyager character is represented. Coolest item of the week is the Robot from "The Adventures of Captain Proton", Tom Paris’s holodeck program. It is really a classic piece!
some of the more interesting items up this week
Click here to see the full list of week6 items on Auction
Alec Peters has joined TrekMovie.com as our Auctions and Collectables Editor. Alec has been a Trek fan since the 60s and collector of memorabilia since the 70s (counting 3 Star Trek Captain’s costumes in his collection). As Founder and former CEO of f Auctionworks, he is also an expert in auctions and eBay. For more check out Alec’s Trek Auctions Blog
If given my druthers, I would enjoy owning a bunch of memorabilia from “The Motion Picture.”
I think this HIGHLY underrated jewel of a film is actually in MANY ways Treks finest and most glorious hour – certainly it’s most successful financially and most defining artistically.
TOS is the anomoly of all series and films, standing apart and visually appearing unique, “The Motion Picture” created a visual palette that 25 years later is still emulated and elaborated on in Trek projects.
Thanks, Alec, for another terrific column. I also enjoyed the expended version on your blog. As someone who has geekily paid a fair amount of attention to the details of the various uniforms used over the years, its a real treat to see some of the actual screen-used costumes in fairly close detail, and I definitely envy your collection. Very much looking forward to reading more of your stuff in the weeks ahead.