Tuesday evening after the viewing, I receive a phone call from Cheri Rosen. She put herself on the auction waiting list but never thought she would be called. Her super schmoozing skills were obviously underestimated since she managed to get called. However she could not take the time off of work, so she talked Christie's into letting Jim & I attend instead. All hail Queen Schmoozie!

We had 24 hours to tell our employers that we would not be into work the rest of the week, pack our bags, find a hotel room near NYC, grab all our financial info and drive to NYC. We were exhausted by the time we arrive in the NYC area around 3am on Thursday in the pouring rain, but we didn't care. We were back on cloud nine again!

Since we had never attended an auction of this caliber (Creation con auctions aren't in this league) we did not know what to expect. Gil the doorman greeted us each morning and encouraged us each day to bid & win. The Christie's staff was extremely nice, friendly and very helpful. We arrived early for the auction and pickup our registration packet which included tickets for all 3 days and auction rules & instructions.

We arrived in the ballroom and unknowingly took a seat behind Michael & Denise Okuda. Hey remember us?! At the front of the room were a few auction items: a large Federation symbol hung on the wall; flag from different Trek races; uniforms from Enterprise, early DS9 & Voyager; British sailing ship uniform from ST:7; and the ship wheel from ST5. We learned that the rest of the auction items were packed up and sent off to warehouse in Queens.

Also on display in the auction room were the HUGE filming models of the Enterprise A and Enterprise D! With no one to stop us this time, we spent every minute of free time at the auction taking tons of close up pictures of the models, breathing on them and touching them too.

We had a "wish list" of all the auction items we were planning to bid on. With the 2 Christie's catalogues, our wish list and a notebook to calculate cost/bidding ranges, we were prepared for the auction, we thought.

Cathy, the first auctioneer used the Klingon claw-shaped gavel from ST6 to open the auction. She was very fast and the bidding went high at warp speed. Every so often we would be shocked at the winning bids for some of the simplest things. Even the Okudas would look back at us all with an expression of disbelief. After the first hour, we knew that our "wish list" was now mostly unobtainable. Time for plan B ... B as in "better-pray-for-some-luck".

Each day the auction started at 10am and ended around 7pm with a one hour lunch break at 1pm. That's 8hrs a day of us sitting in the same chairs at a mostly fast-paced auction. There were some items that we were not interested in, like the scripts, uniforms etc, so when they were up for auction we took the time to stand up and walk around to stretch our legs. We learned quickly to stock up on munchies and drink during the lunch hour so we would not starve in our seats.

There were several auctioneers that took turns over the course of the 3 days. Some had British accents and they were a little dry. Others were very funny and tried to get into the mood. One male auctioneer would put on the British sailing ship hat each time the opening bid for an item was going to start off high. "Oh. I think we'll need the hat for this one." he'd say.

Some of the Trek terms were difficult for the auctioneers to pronounce so we needed to patient with them. One auctioneer kept referring to "Sulu" as "solo" until the entire audience corrected her.

From time to time the guys with the hand held cameras came around to our area to film the crowd. The whole auction was being broadcasted online at the History.com website. Many of our friends back home were watching and told us that they spotted us in the audience.

Thursday was not our day to win anything. Now Friday we were warmed up, and with paddle in hand, we placed bids on several items. We missed out on a lot of them but we did win one filming model from Deep Space 9 - the 3ft long lighted model of the Karemma starship from the 4th season episode "Starship Down"!

We could not believe it was true. Jim kept asking me over and over again "Are you sure we won? Are you sure she called out our paddle #? Did she get my paddle #...?" I kept assuring him it was all true, while doubting the reality of the situation myself.

Saturday was the day for the heavy hitters. After watching the Enterprise D sell for over $500,000 we hoped that the Enterprise A would go for more. It did not and we were very disappointed. It was a sour note to end the auction with. The Lakota/Enterprise B model that Jim feel in love with also went for an obscene amount of money. But that's okay since we had won a piece of Star Trek history and we were not going home empty handed.

After winning the model, John (from Blind Vision) was there again with his camera crew to interview us yet again. This would be our 3rd interview. He wanted to show continuity from the first interview at Las Vegas in August.

We stayed at Christie's until well after the auction had ended - getting some quality time with the Enterprise A & D models and saying goodbye to our new friends. We had become friends with the people around us, cheering for them when they won a bid and consoling them when they lost.

Eventually Security kicked us all out of the building. We stood outside on the sidewalk again not wanting to go home ...not wanting to let it all end. We walked the streets of Manhattan for a few minutes absorbing it all. We returned home Saturday evening in a daze and numb. "It can't be over" we thought "...it can't be".

HOME

Las Vegas Exhibit

Rockefeller Concourse Exhibit

Christie's Exhibit

Model Pictures

Auction Prices