Julien’s Upcoming Hero Phaser & Communicator Auction

[TOS Phaser]

By damage to the GJ battery cover, are you talking about where the paint is missing from the bottom? Also, how do we know there was any damage from Shatner dropping it?

No I am talking about the following photo of the Jein P1 matted to the Riley/Lenore P2 hanging on Shatner's gold pistol belt on the planets surface in "The Man Trap":

 

[TOS Phaser]

Also, how do we know there was any damage from Shatner dropping it?

Take a look at "The Man Trap" (sorry I don't have my B&W study caps ready to post) - when Kirk beams down with McCoy and a blue shirt - the whole time Kirk walks and then runs from the ruins - his hand does not hover over his hanging Hero P2. And the P2 is hanging almost horizontally. Then later when Kirk and Spock are hunting Dr. Crater - you can clearly see Shatner's hand hovers over his hanging (a different) Hero P2) and the angle of the Hero P2 hanging on the gold belt has changed to vertical (see my previous post). You see the same new hang angle in the scene where both Kirk and Spock are wearing Hero P2s on their gold belts. See my earlier post on two Hero P2s hanging on gold belts in "The Man Trap".

 

[TOS Phaser]

Just to clarify, these are the known 4 hero phasers:

I can agree the 4 Hero P2s shown are the Hero P2s that the Desilu Inventory memo reflects/lists.
However "we can agree to disagree" that the 4 Hero P1s shown in those caps are the 4 Hero P1s reported on the Desilu Inventory memo.

I have waited since the first season of Star Trek was first broadcast - to understand exactly what the Hero Phasers looked like. And frankly I am very pleased the family of the fabeled "Japanese collector" has put the Finney P2 with TMOST P1 up for auction.

So I can wait a little longer for the owners/collectors of the remaining Hero P2s and Hero P1s to pass on or let The Wand Company or some other company to laser scan them...

As Dahn said - opinions are nice - however we shall never know exactly what the Desilu Effects Department did to the Hero P1s after WMC "reworked" them...

Also I must apologize for using Hero P2 photos to make a point about the Hero P1s.

 

[TOS Phaser]

Logic dictates with the limited supply of watch crowns he did two hero phasers with crowns and two without

Agreed - I cannot prove that Matt and the Desilu Effects Department built two Hero P1s for closeup shots without Velcro on the left side and that they built two Hero P1s for carrying the Hero P2s on gold belts - nor that the P1s with Velcro on the left side were made to look like the the other two Hero P1s for closeup shots - however that is what I see in the B&W episodes especially on the planets surface of "The Man Trap"

 

[AdmiralBaxter]

I personally feel that the p1's were probably not interchangeable and I only feel this way because I have built a few hero's in my time from
fiberglass castings and both upper and lower castings of the p1 are hand trimmed and fitted. Then you take into account a P1 release mechanism hand made and hand fitted to each P2 body with slots hand cut and fitted to match. For me, that is a difficult enough task to accomplish to get the
P1 and P2 to match each other on just one phaser. To get all four to match, forget about it.

All four P2's had P1's fitted for each unit.

It's the only way WMC or myself would do it because he would be trying to maintain a certain level of quality.

I can't honestly believe that WMC would do sloppy work.

Yes the P1's were changed with various P2's by the prop handlers basically because they weren't paying attention to what they do.

 

[Tosfan1]

I feel like they were interchangeable to a DEGREE. Like out of the four, maybe two could be switched without much problem, but yeah, too much variance for all of them to do it.

Agreed. I have three fiberglass heros and all can be interchangeable to some degree with the P1 & P2. All the handles are interchangeable without any issue.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

Reluctantly, I believe the jewels on the knobs (an eyesore to be sure) are original to the Beta Comm prop…I can see the “glint” of the greenish right hand knob jewel in the famous “Day of the Dove” closeup shot…

I don’t think these jewels were added by whomever owned the prop, following the cancellation of the series.

 

[AdmiralBaxter]

I can agree the 4 Hero P2s shown are the Hero P2s that the Desilu Inventory memo reflects/lists.
However "we can agree to disagree" that the 4 Hero P1s shown in those caps are the 4 Hero P1s reported on the Desilu Inventory memo.

I have waited since the first season of Star Trek was first broadcast - to understand exactly what the Hero Phasers looked like. And frankly I am very pleased the family of the fabeled "Japanese collector" has put the Finney P2 with TMOST P1 up for auction.

Also I must apologize for using Hero P2 photos to make a point about the Hero P1s.

Well logic dictates that the 4 hero P2's and 4 hero P1's are the ones on the inventory just because they verify the accuracy of each...

I am interested as well yet understanding the mindset while they were being built is really more interesting.

Don't apologize, you did good.

 

[Gregatron]

Reluctantly, I believe the jewels on the knobs (an eyesore to be sure) are original to the Beta Comm prop…I can see the “glint” of the greenish right hand knob jewel in the famous “Day of the Dove” closeup shot…

View attachment 1842910View attachment 1842909
View attachment 1842911

I don’t think these jewels were added by whomever owned the prop, following the cancellation of the series.

Assuming that these jewels were on the prop from the start, they’re a bizarre anomaly, since none of the other known comm props ever appeared to have them. Was Beta the first prop built, and then they decided not to carry that detail over to Alpha and the dummies?

 

[Captain Dunsel]

Assuming that these jewels were on the prop from the start, they’re a bizarre anomaly, since none of the other known comm props ever appeared to have them. Was Beta the first prop built, and then they decided not to carry that detail over to Alpha and the dummies?

I think Wah was dazzled by rhinestones and simply went overboard on Beta.

This was his deluxe, “frosted” hero…

 

[feek61]

I can agree the 4 Hero P2s shown are the Hero P2s that the Desilu Inventory memo reflects/lists.
However "we can agree to disagree" that the 4 Hero P1s shown in those caps are the 4 Hero P1s reported on the Desilu Inventory memo.

I have waited since the first season of Star Trek was first broadcast - to understand exactly what the Hero Phasers looked like. And frankly I am very pleased the family of the fabeled "Japanese collector" has put the Finney P2 with TMOST P1 up for auction.

So I can wait a little longer for the owners/collectors of the remaining Hero P2s and Hero P1s to pass on or let The Wand Company or some other company to laser scan them...

As Dahn said - opinions are nice - however we shall never know exactly what the Desilu Effects Department did to the Hero P1s after WMC "reworked" them...

Also I must apologize for using Hero P2 photos to make a point about the Hero P1s.

What is there to disagree about? The phaser inventory memo was dated just before Wah did the conversions. The memo lists 4 practical (hero) guns including #1 (P1), #2 (P2) and power packs (handles) as a single line item. An additional 4 extra practical power packs were listed on a separate line item. There is no other mention of any practical P1, P2 or powerpacks in the rest of memo; it mentions rubber guns and plastic guns. What other hero P1's would there be if they are not listed on the inventory memo?

 

[AdmiralBaxter]

Agreed. I have three fiberglass heros and all can be interchangeable to some degree with the P1 & P2. All the handles are interchangeable without any issue.

I find with any hero phaser beit Fiberglass all the way down to a cast resin or even DST they can only interchange to an extent switching things around generally doesn't work well

 

[Nicksdad]

Remember that Wah did not make the hero's, he redressed them. All the internals , shells, fitting was done by the Desilu boys. I very much doubt
that Wah was able to make sure phasers had interchangeable P1s, especially when it appears he was rushed to get them to the studio probably
one or two at a time.

 

[Gregatron]

Remember that Wah did not make the hero's, he redressed them. All the internals , shells, fitting was done by the Desilu boys. I very much doubt
that Wah was able to make sure phasers had interchangeable P1s, especially when it appears he was rushed to get them to the studio probably
one or two at a time.

Important point. Wah designed and built the communicators and tricorders, but only redressed the existing phasers (and aesthetically brought them into line with his comm and tric designs).

 

[AdmiralBaxter]

Remember that Wah did not make the hero's, he redressed them. All the internals , shells, fitting was done by the Desilu boys. I very much doubt
that Wah was able to make sure phasers had interchangeable P1s, especially when it appears he was rushed to get them to the studio probably
one or two at a time.

Right which correlates to what I said earlier:

He could only match the P1's match their respective P2's

It doesn't even make sense to have them interchangeable because they are hand built and he would have quickly noticed making them interchangeable would be nearly impossible given the time frame he was working with.

 

[AdmiralBaxter]

Here's a perfect example of proper lighting tells all:

Four phasers 3 different handle colors and even the two that are the same (Top Left, Bottom Right) are not identical in person or when photographed even though they are from the same batch of paint.

These are all variants of dark grey metallic and all are closer to the colors seen on screen than the widely accepted "dark bronze metallic" which looks more "milk chocolate" in color as can been seen with the color of the additional power pack.

IF the four phasers were in a group photo from say 10-15 feet away from the camera the handle colors would look nearly identical even though we can see they are obviously different.

 

[TOS Phaser]

You are comparing camera angles that are shot below the P2s which distort the top of the P1 shell.

"Distort"? Are you talking about "perspective" on the Riley scene? OK that can be argued.

However the image of the P1 in the Lenore's P2 (the P2 she is holding) has no perspective issue.

This view is almost straight on.

These P1 shell heights are different. This Hero P1 is not the TMOST.

If your theory about WMC transforming the "Lost /4th" Hero P1 from a "carry" Hero P1 with Velcro on the left side to a Hero P1 for closeups - in which he removed the carry Velcro from the left side, added a crown and jewel - then how do you explain the difference in the shell heights?

I have stated more than once - I believe, from my study of the B&W Hero P1s in the early Season 1 episodes - there were two Hero P1s for closeups - the TMOST and the Nona and there were two (IMO) Hero P1s for carrying the Hero P2s with Velcro on the left side that were very close in size and shape to their closeup twins.

The "Lost" Hero P1 was - in my opinion, based on B&W episode studies, especially "The Enemy Within" and "The Man Trap" - the same size and shape as the TMOST Hero P1.

 

[feek61]

"Distort"? Are you talking about "perspective" on the Riley scene? OK that can be argued.

However the image of the P1 in the Lenore's P2 (the P2 she is holding) has no perspective issue.
View attachment 1843036
This view is almost straight on.

View attachment 1843038
These P1 shell heights are different. This Hero P1 is not the TMOST.

If your theory about WMC transforming the "Lost /4th" Hero P1 from a "carry" Hero P1 with Velcro on the left side to a Hero P1 for closeups - in which he removed the carry Velcro from the left side, added a crown and jewel - then how do you explain the difference in the shell heights?

I have stated more than once - I believe, from my study of the B&W Hero P1s in the early Season 1 episodes - there were two Hero P1s for closeups - the TMOST and the Nona and there were two (IMO) Hero P1s for carrying the Hero P2s with Velcro on the left side that were very close in size and shape to their closeup twins.

The "Lost" Hero P1 was - in my opinion, based on B&W episode studies, especially "The Enemy Within" and "The Man Trap" - the same size and shape as the TMOST Hero P1.

Yes, perspective, thank you.

You are not taking into consideration that the flash coming off of the metal makes it look bigger where you measured it. In the photo below I have outlined the actual thickness of the side rail at the front where there is no glare and moved it back to where you measured; your measurement (the gap between your yellow lines) is over twice as big as the actual thickness of the side rail. This is what makes the top shell look smaller but it is not. I never one time said this was the TMOST P1, not sure where you got that idea from. Both the Conscience / Lenore / Riley P1 AND the TMOST P1 both had the blue watch crown and this P1 is most likely the Conscience / Lenore / Riley P1 because there would be no reason to switch the P1's.

I am not looking at the B & W's and don't care about them; again, I am only looking at the post Wah conversions because I don't believe you can identify which B&W P1's ended up as which post Wah modified P1's because we do not know what he did to them.

 

[Treadwell]

IMO the resolution of even HD screencaps, unless it's a super close closeup, is insufficient to be making the kinds of conclusions some are making. The glare portion of that cap is only four pixels.

 

[AdmiralBaxter]

IMO the resolution of even HD screencaps, unless it's a super close closeup, is insufficient to be making the kinds of conclusions some are making. The glare portion of that cap is only four pixels.

I can do very high resolution screen caps, if I set it in the software beforehand.

Most software for screencaps is 72dpi for SD (720p), 120dpi for HD (1080p) or 150dpi/220dpi for 4K videos.