I have a Christmas tree (a small, nontraditional, silver holographic one–very Star Trekkie) that I hang all my ornaments on. A few years ago, I became disenchanted with Hallmark and their lack of creativity and willingness to recreate odd characters.

So, I started making my own ST ornaments. I use the small Playmates figures, so I have many to choose from: Ilia, Mugatu, Gorn, Sarek, Harry Mudd…the list goes on. I’ve got my eye on some of the new ones, as well: Hengrauggi, Keenser, Nero, etc.

I use the smallest drill bit I have (1/32″?) and screw in the eyelets for hanging pictures. A good place is between the shoulder blades or back of the head. I also use Smith & Hawken heavy duty ornament hangers (expensive, but sturdy, durable, and attractive).

I also use found items, sometimes actual Christmas ornaments, that seem Trekish to me: snowflake for the Crystaline Entitiy, small black balls representing Black Holes, etc. I just use my imagination.

My tree is spectacular, unique, and everyone just loves it!

Sadly, being unemployed due to plant closer and starting school again in August….this ornament will go the way of last years Reliant.

There may be a way for you to adapt your older ornaments to fit your newer light string. If you still have the original box, there is a folded paper inside that will instruct you on how you convert the plug on the ornament to fit the socket on your light string.

#99-Thank you. I always try to sculpt something that I will be proud to display in my own home (especially when another Trek fan comes to visit). The TOS Romulan Bird of Prey has been on my short list for many years. However, I suspect that the successful ‘09 movie will be the “elephant in the room” in the near future.

I know you’d do the 2009 “New Coke Trek” Enterprise just as accurately, but ee-gads … what an unbalanced and inconsistent monstrosity that’d be to produce. They didn’t even do surface detailing consistently from the primary and secondary hulls. I can imagine you in your workshop, grumbling as you progressively refined it, “Dang, give me another Jeffries, Probert, Sternbach design to work on again.

I, too, prefer the battery models to the cords, but some of these (Runabout, Delta Flyer, 1701-E) clearly needed the voltage and current required by a light string. Some don’t even yield a way to incorporate sufficient LR44s or LR43s. It’s not hard tie-wrapping the cord up out of the way for curio display, anyway….

Wait … are my searches deceiving me? Have you not yet done Wah Chang’s TOS Romulan Bird of Prey? Woah. Done to scale with either of your Enterprises (1701, 1701-A), that would be a beauty. Please consider short listing that. Please, please, please….

Bring on the Klingon ships!

Can we have another commercial in Klingon like for the BoP ornament?

(And I prefer batteries to cords. The Galeleo (no, I can’t spell) no longer plugs in and the BoPs look weird chasing after the Enterprise with a “tail”.)

Like other posters above, I too have one of every ornament released thus far (in my case, both Star Trek and Star Wars). This is part of what sustains my collecting efforts — knowing that I have everything and that I’d like to keep my collection complete. The recent practice of issuing special “premiere week only” ornaments (like the Ilia above and the original red Uhura) is NOT something I appreciate, primarily because it makes it that much more difficult to maintain said completeness. Heaven forbid I can’t make it to a Hallmark store when it opens that Saturday morning, to grab one of the 4-6 copies they will ever have for sale! Even for those who are not completists, this practice makes for an unnecessarily frustrating wrinkle in acquiring the desired items. Nevertheless, I adjust my plans and hope for the best.

But now Hallmark has taken the extraordinary measure of offering ornaments SO limited — as likened above to Playmates Toys’ 1701 figure fiasco — that they will fall FAR short of fulfilling demand. As pointed out above, there are WAY more Star Trek / Hallmark fans worldwide. There are easily thousands (likely tens of thousands) who collect the Star Trek Hallmark ornaments every year, most of whom will want this exclusive, yet VERY few of whom will get one.

Personally, I live in NJ and do not have the means to travel 3,000+ miles to the San Diego Comic Con. As a collector, I face this dilemma every year, when companies create collectibles exclusive to the SDCC. To their credit, most offer the items for sale on their respective websites on the Monday following the event. Hasbro, Mattel, Sideshow, etc. There still may not be enough to go around, but making them available via the web goes a long way towards smoothing the ruffled feathers of many thousands of pissed-off fans.

In this case, we have ornaments from two very popular (and very long-running) collectible Hallmark lines, offered exclusively at one event, with such low production runs that they have no hope whatsoever of meeting fan demand (450 for Star Trek and 700 for Star Wars). They are limited not only in quantity but also in availability, since nobody but convention attendees will be able to acquire them at face value. Even if one were to consider the option of seeking them out on the secondary market, their availability will still be so limited that it will likely have the same exclusionary effect that Playmates’ 1701 series did. In other words, it will give collectors their “out.” If they can’t have them ALL, then they won’t want ANY. Why go to the trouble of continuing to acquire all the ornaments when there will always be one or two that they can never have? For better or for worse, this is the so-called “collector mentality” at work, and it’s about to happen to Hallmark’s many loyal Star Trek and Star Wars fans.

Okay, end of rant.

I realize my little tirade will likely not get Hallmark to change their mind or policies in this regard. If nothing else, I suppose I’m just hoping to raise my voice on behalf of those collectors who care about such things (but who don’t have a half-hour to kill on a Tuesday morning, as I did today).

I thank you for reading my words and I hope they resonate with at least a few of you.