Last month we reported that original art from the “Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years” collection was going up for auction as part of the Heritage Entertainment & Music Memorabilia Signature Auction taking place in Dallas, TX on April 15th. But that isn’t the extent of the Star Trek portion of that action: also going up on the block are 37 lots from the personal collection of visual effects producer and supervisor Dan Curry.
Curry held a number of visual effects positions in the Trek franchise for 18 years, winning several Emmy Awards for his work on four series:
“It took me 18 years to accumulate the memorabilia that’s up for auction,” said Curry, “I was part of the small number of people who made up the ‘18-year club’ – people who worked on Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. I never really thought about assembling a collection for sale. They were just things that, for one reason or another, wound up in my possession, and I just kept them because I thought they were cool.”
Curry’s collection of weapons, creatures, paintings, concept drawings and props cross the block in Heritage Auctions’ Entertainment Auction. His martial arts experience helped him develop what evolved into the Klingons’ fighting style, Mok’Bara, and contributed to his creation of several of the shows’ iconic weapons including the bat’leth, the mek’leth.
One of the lots up for auction is the sword of Kahless (estimated price $8,000) from the Deep Space Nine episode of the same name. Made of steel, it has Klingon writing engraved into the two protruding side blades and with the Klingon insignia cut into the center, and the center handle wrapped in strips of brown leather. It is one of only two crafted by Gil Hibben, who also is known for creating “the Rambo knife.”
The sword of Kahless (Lot #89173)
Curry also worked on a number of creatures for Trek including the “Distant Origin” Voyager Screen-Used Creature Model (est. $3,000+) which was designed and painted by Curry, and sculpted from modeling clay by creature sculptor Jordu Schell (Avatar). Also up for auction are some of the parasites from the TNG episode “Conspiracy.”
Also likely to draw major interest is one of the most recognizable props from the Star Trek franchise: the 1994 Star Trek: The Next Generation Screen Used Enterprise Saucer Model from “All Good Things” (est. $8,000). This fiberglass model is the saucer top of the Enterprise NCC-1701-D was made by Oscar-nominated visual effects miniature builder Greg Jein.
Enterprise D saucer from “All Good Things”
Other cool bits from Curry’s collection include a screen used Klingon anatomy chart from ENT: “Affliction”
Klingon display graphic
A concept model of the Borg Unicomplex from Voyager
Borg concept model
And, a series of concept sketches for the Xindi Insectoid race from Enterprise
Xindi concept sketch
Online bidding is already open. Visit the Heritage site to view all the lots or click this link to see just the Dan Curry Collection.
So many awesome Trek designs by this guy. The Discovery design team should have picked his brain or at least get him as a consultant on the show.
Why? To make the show look like the 80’s?
NO, to make the show look like Star Trek.
Can you please tell me why it is such a bad thing if it at least looks like the original thing? I mean you will probably say something about modernity, and I agree modernity is nice and all, but don’t you also find some of the classics to be good too. I mean take music, what would happen if we changed Mozarts or Beethovens work to modernize it or go ahead and colorize Citizen Kane, it makes it modern. What I am saying is, modernism is good, but not for everything.
People enjoy Beethoven and Mozart, and their popularity has withstood the passage of time. Star Trek couldn’t last on television because less and less people watched it. From a business perspective, going back to what failed is a suicidal move. I don’t like it always, but I also realize that I’m part of a small group of people in the grand scheme of the television/movie-going population that call themselves Trek fans. These decisions have to appeal to the majority.
Curry, Zimmerman, Okuda and Drexler should ALL Have been consulted.
Personally, I’m thrilled with fresh designs and ideas. After TNG and early DS9, everything was a retread.
I don’t want to see what we’ve seen already.
I see both sides here. I love the classic designs and consulting veterans could have gone a long way to establish this show with long term fans.
That being said, I love these new designs.
I bought the Eaglemoss USS Shenzou and my favorite part about it was the concept book that broke down how the design came into play.
Fuller wanted a lot of the ships to have vastly different designs because Starfleet was trying to break away from Vulcan design and establish their own. Which is why the ships looks so different from each other. They were trying out new and experimental designs.
I think that is cool, but I see the angle that they look almost too different.
They work well with newer Enterprise design, but they still seem a bit too polished and updated.
I’m on the fence honestly. The Discovery is one of my favorite ships along with Voyager.
I don’t get a lot of the hate for the design, but I haven’t grown up on Star Trek my whole life like others.
However, I did grow up on the Prequel Star Wars trilogy and if they were to make a film or show that took place in that period and changed all the designs I would be annoyed, so in that light I think keeping things more traditional would have gone a long way.
It may not have been as popular with mainstream viewers though.
I thought Prelude to Anaxanr had nice designs that blended well and could have worked for Discovery, but Bryan Fuller specifically said that he did not want round nacelles (Eaglemoss Design Book).
I see both sides, I’m mostly curious as to how they honor TOS with the Enterprise interior.
I’m excited
Very good post, I like it when we can have an honest and thoughtful discussion about subject and I definitely see where you are coming from. I don’t mind the ship designs too much actually, they seem to be reasonable in terms of where and how they can be developed more from the Enterprise era, but I just think the TNG Klingon design really didn’t need to change this drastically, and I personally think they only did this to hide actor Shazad Latif under all that make up so people couldn’t realize he was Voq, I don’t think there was a real necessity for the change. Considering the fact that the other classical series era species designs are changed very little, I still find it odd that Klingons could be so drastically changed.
I completely agree with you on this one, I’m not sure a visual reboot was necessary for them. Had they shown different kinds of Klingons including the TNG style then perhaps it would have worked better, but the TNG design is still the best in my opinion.
I think an updated TNG look would have gone a long way for these Klingons, I loved what they did for the andorians.
I know there has been a lot of annoyance over the ship designs for the Klingon Empire as well, since its an array of different houses I’m on board with the designs looking really far out there, but I hope in season 2 we can get a D-7 or a classic bird of prey
Why is he selling it?
Regarding sword of Kahless – that is not the one in the episode which I understood to be plastic lava – and actually reading the listing is a prop for the Star Trek Experience. Regardless the Kahless style is unusable for anything but display – the hand positions are way too close together.