Estimated to sell at around $50,000, the sale of the Phaser Rifle used by Kirk in the second ‘Star Trek’ pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, stunned many with its final auction price of $231,000. Though the phaser rifle was only seen once on screen and in some promotional shots, the piece is a big part of ‘Star Trek’ history.
‘Star Trek’ props generally sell for heaps of money. The shuttlecraft Galileo sold for $70K, and most notably, Kirk’s Captain’s chair sold for a mind-boggling $270K. Most costumes, of which there are many (after all, how could there not be after have four series) all sell for over $1K.
Items from ‘Star Trek’ are not the only props that fetch high prices at auction. In 2008, Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber from ‘Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’ sold for around $240K, which if you want still want to debate which is the better franchise, when you compare this to the auction price of Kirk’s chair, it scores one –barely– for ‘Star Trek’. Props selling for exorbitant amounts of money from Star Wars is nothing new, with Obi-Wan’s cloak selling for around $100K and Chewbacca’s head selling for near the same price.
But the gun used by Harrison Ford in ‘Blade Runner’ blows both props out of the water and matches the Captain’s chair. At $270K, it beats both franchises out when it comes to weapons.
Among some of the most expensive movie props ever sold was the DeLorean from the third ‘Back to the Future’ movie which sold for over $500K.
Though the phaser rifle will never rival that price, it’s still clear that ‘Star Trek’s’ fandom is still going strong. One wonders what the reboot movies props will bring when they are auctioned off 50 years in the future.
