Bidding is now open on the Prop Store Star Trek: Discovery auction that we told you about last month — featuring 241 lots of props and costumes from the first and second seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, the auction is a perfect opportunity to bring home a piece of the show to add to your collections.
In advance of the conclusion of bidding on Thursday September 16, we are sharing ten of the most interesting items that are being auctioned by ViacomCBS and Prop Store. Even if you may not be able to purchase any of these items, Prop Store’s photography of these lots provides a great opportunity to get a much closer look at costumes and props that maybe we only got to see briefly on screen.
Here are ten items that most caught our eye:
This auction has a number of Starfleet uniform badges, which in the Discovery era serve not only as insignia but also include the rank pip design that allows for officers to determine each others’ seniority.
The most sought after of these badges are likely to be this one – Pike’s captain badge, worn by Anson Mount – and Michael Burnham’s hero commander badge from the Discovery pilot. These magnetic badges are another nice mash up between the Discovery aesthetic and Star Trek’s original uniform division patches from the classic show.
There are a number of great Mirror Universe costumes in this auction, but I picked the Tilly costume because it comes from the funny scene in which she is impersonating ‘Captain Killy,’ her Terran counterpart, in “Despite Yourself” — giving us that first glimpse of a more confident Tilly beneath the anxious exterior.
The detailing on the breast plate of these costumes is really great, and they would display well in anyone’s collection.
The classic Star Trek hand phaser, redesigned to become one of Discovery’s most popular props, is such a nice blend of a classic and modern Star Trek aesthetic.
Hero props like this phaser are some of the most sought after by collectors, so this is definitely going to be an expensive purchase — already $4,000 at the time of writing — but these photographs will be a gold mine for prop replica creators who want to produce a cheaper, but still accurate, replica of this iconic phaser design.
The costume worn by fan-favorite Discovery actor Kenneth Mitchell, in his first Season 2 role as “Kol-Sha,” father of Season 1 Klingon adversary “Kol.”
There are a lot of cool Klingon costumes in this auction of different styles, including the ornate House of T’Kuvma costumes from early Season 1, but this one caught my eye because it probably has the strongest design lineage with the Klingon costumes from early Star Trek shows — showing the way in which the Discovery production began to re-integrate some of those classic Klingon designs in the second season.
Throughout Star Trek’s production history, Vulcan costumes have always been some of the most impressive — and while this Sarek costume, worn by James Frain in “The Vulcan Hello,” is not as ornate as some other Vulcan costumes, it mixes form and function nicely while still having a very structured look to it.
The detailing on the coat and its lining is difficult to see on screen, but much more impressive up close.
Though only a stunt costume — meaning it was worn by Anson Mount’s stunt double — we finally get a clear look at Captain Pike’s fleet captain costume from the flash-forward scene in “Through the Valley of Shadows” where Pike sees the accident that will change his life irrevocably.
The fleet captain uniform has a similar design aesthetic to the formal dress uniforms seen in the Kelvin Timeline in Star Trek Into Darkness, and the epaulets stars on the costume strongly harken back to the Starfleet Command insignia seen in the Original Series.
This one is the heavily-distressed Discovery medical uniform worn by Wilson Cruz in “Saints of Imperfection,” where the crew finds Hugh Culber alive inside the mycelial network.
This is a great costume to get a closer view of all the intricate distressing that was done to the costume by the production. The weathering and burn marks all over the costume really add to the sense that Culber has been trapped in the mycelial network for some time, and that it has not been a pleasant experience for him.
Perhaps the most esoteric prop listing in the auction, this tribble cereal box comes from the spoof commercial included at the end of “The Trouble with Edward.” Have you ever wanted to display a tribble cereal box complete with miniature tribbles, with a few regular-sized ones for good measure? Well, now is your chance.
There are a lot of opportunities to purchase tribbles from this Short Trek in the auction, and I expect they will be relatively affordable in comparison to the rest of the items in this auction if you’re looking for something on the cheaper side.
Another set of costumes we did not get a great look at in the dimly lit Talos IV set were the Talosian Observers in the episode “If Memory Serves.”
Here we get a much clearer look at the costume designs, which both update from and throw back to the classic Talosian costume design from the original Star Trek pilot “The Cage.”
I could not avoid including one of the classic Discovery blue Starfleet uniforms, and selected the most iconic I could find: Sonequa Martin-Green’s hero uniform, worn in the series pilot episode.
There are a lot of these blue uniforms up for sale in this auction, from both major characters like Burnham, Saru, and Stamets, as well as likely more-affordable ones worn by background extras.
The fact that ViacomCBS have chosen to sell so many of these costumes is a very strong indication that we may have seen the last of this uniform design on screen, especially with the changeover in uniform on Discovery and the new uniforms unveiled for Strange New Worlds.
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In addition to the Discovery auction listings, the family of Leonard Nimoy have donated two items to this auction that will lead off the bidding. Of the two, the most compelling for me is a pair of Spock ears that Leonard wore during the filming of his cameo in Star Trek Into Darkness, his final performance for the franchise.
There are a lot of fake Spock ears floating around, so if you are looking for something that has a rock solid provenance of authenticity, you can’t get much better than this.
One important point to know about Prop Store’s online auction platform is that it works a little different a system like, say, eBay: any bids placed in the last few moments of the listing will automatically extend the listing by an additional minute to give other bidders the chance to counter.
Only once a minute has passed with no additional bids will the lot close – so the traditional eBay tactic of “snipe bidding” in the final few moments of the listing is much more difficult to impact the final sale.
Bidding is now open for all the lots in the Star Trek: Discovery auction and will run through Thursday, September 16. Lots will begin closing sequentially throughout the day on Thursday, so get your bids in now if you are interested. Good luck, collectors!
Star Trek: Lower DecksSeason 1 Blu-ray
Star Trek: Lower DecksSeason 2 Blu-ray
