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As part of
the festivities for the 30th
anniversary of Star Trek in 1996,
Playmates released a number of
commemorative "Classic" Trek toys.
Among these was one of the very few
"figure interactive" size vehicles ever
produced by Playmates; the Enterprise
Shuttlecraft Galileo seen most
prominently in the Classic Trek episode
"The Galileo 7." The ship, while not
really to scale with the figures (the
"real" shuttle could carry at least
seven passengers, the toy can only
carry two), was close enough and very
nicely done. Perhaps taking a cue from
their extremely successful peers over
at Hasbro (i.e. "the Star Wars
people"), Playmates decided to include
an exclusive pack-in figure as an added
enticement to purchase the shuttle.
This figure, our current feature, was
James T. Kirk in the uniform he wore in
his first Star Trek appearance (in
keeping with the "30th Anniversary"
theme). For those of you that don't
know (and I suspect there are very few
of you that frequent this site that
fall into that catagory), this uniform
differs from Kirk's "standard" uniform
in that the color is slightly
different, there are no rank insignia
on the sleeves, and the collar is the
same color as the shirt (not black).
For the truely trivial: the Enterprise
insignia on the left front chest also
lacks the black border of the later
"standard" uniform. My Galileo with
Kirk was purchased at the K-Mart in
Superior, WI.
Kirk from
"Where No Man Has Gone Before" is a
decent looking figure. What can I say?
It's a very basic guy-in-a-uniform
figure that uses Playmates
well-sculpted Kirk head. Unopened, this
set will now fetch an average of $39.00
on the secondary market. Opened and
intact, the set will average $12.00.
The WNMHGB Kirk figure features
standard articulation at the neck,
shoulders, biceps, elbows, waist, hips,
and knees. While being a pretty cool
set and maintaining it's value fairly
well, the Galileo with Kirk sold poorly
in retail (until it hit the bargain
aisles) like almost every other playset
or "figure interactive" Star Trek toy
Playmates has ever produced. While it's
great to be able to get items like this
cheaply in the bargain bins, I suppose
that having to cut their losses and
sell things for clearance prices
doesn't encourage retailers to order
similar products and consequently
discourages Playmates from attempting
to come up with similar products. On
the other hand, I got mine on clearance
for $10.00, whoo-hoo! I bought it,
opened it, and it's still worth $2.00
more than I paid for it.
The WNMHGB
Kirk figure is basically a
pieced-together figure, but not
completely recycled. Let me explain:
The head is the standard "Classic
Series" Kirk head and the legs are
taken from the "Classic Set" Kirk
figure. I believe the remaining pieces
were newly sculpted in 1996, but they
were used for at least 1 (but probably
3) other commemorative figure(s)
produced the same year. The Spock from
"The Cage" figure uses exactly the same
body parts as this Kirk figure with
only paint and color changes. Limited
Edition figures (10,000 of each
manufactured) of Mr. Scott and Mr. Sulu
from "Where No Man Has Gone Before"
were produced for Spencers Gifts and
were sold at the big Huntsville,
Alabama 30th Anniversary Star Trek
Convention. As near as I can tell,
these figures were also produced using
the same body as the Kirk figure with
appropriate color/paint changes,
although I can't officially confirm
this since I don't own the latter two
figures. This assumption is supported
by pictures I've seen and by the fact
that there was a production mix up
involving parts from the Huntsville
figures and the Spock figure.
Apparently, some of the Spock legs with
collector numbers higher than 10,000
were accidentally used for the
Huntsville figures resulting in figures
with numbers much higher than the
Limited Edition number produced. I
guess this really cheesed off some
collectors that were paying top dollar
for these two figures. Playmates later
issued a press release to reassure
collectors that only 10,000 of each
figure were produced. As an aside: When
I looked at the collector number on the
foot of my Spock from "The Cage" figure
I found something interesting. It looks
like an original number has been
"whited-out" or painted over and
another number printed on top of it.
Maybe I do have at least a leg of one
of those Huntsville figures after
all.
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