To absent friends… To family.

These are the words that Jean-Luc Picard spoke in the end of “Star Trek: Nemesis” after Data had sacrificed himself to rescue the Captain from the exploding Romulan vessel Scimitar. And it was that occasion, that brought all of Datas shipmates, friends and – in a sense – family together to honor him and taste Chateau Picard, the wine that Picard’s Brother Robert used to press on Earth with passion until his death.

From a technical point of view, this is a relatively simple prop. You just print out the correct graphic and slap it on a nice bottle of actual wine and there you go. And that’s what a friend of mine did and gave it to me as a gift. Thanks Michael!

Here are some snapshots from the movie and the bonus features:

And here’s my replica:

For a special occasion: Chateau Picard, real wine…

…pressed in Labarre, France on Earth, not replicated.

This particular bottle is from 2267.

The picture of the vine is not entirely correct.

The top of the bottle is encased in red, just like the real one.

I got this one from a friend and fellow collector. Thanks Michael!

Once activated, these small devices enable the user to communicate with any other crew memeber who is also equipped with a smiliar badge. While the activation is done by a simple tap, everything else works through a highly sophisticated speech recognition system. Furthermore, these badged contain a personal ID beacon which can for example help to locate crew memebers in case of an emergency.

My replicas shown here are first generation castings from the original and are painted with authentic colors – unless you own a screen-used piece, this is as authentic as you can get. I acquired all of these items through eBay from the seller “JeepFX“.

TNG

TNG – Acting Ensign

TNG – “Future Imperfect”

DS9 – Bajoran Militia

TNG – “All Good Things…”

DS9/VOY/FC/INS/NEM

VOY – “Relativity”

Because of this, I simply had to bid when I saw these chips from the tenth Star Trek movie “Nemesis” on eBay. They are made of shiny blue plexi and feature beautifully laser etched isolinear patterns. These patterns are silver on one and golden on the other side which results in a really nice metallic effect. Besides, their edges are even sharper than those on my TNG isochips!

As far as I know these chips were made by Paramount’s prop department and are identical to the original props in every aspect (material, way of construction). Probably they are even better in quality!

Here’s a picture from the “Nemesis” Special Edition DVD. On the bottom, you can see some of the isochips that were used in the film. The smaller one of my replicas is identical with the blue one on this pile.

(By the way: Besides the isochips, there are also two PADD-Stylii in this picture, which were made out of butane pen torches.)

These chips were not only used in “Nemesis“, but also in “First Contact” and “Insurrection“.

Here are the pictures of my replicas:

Silver on one side, …

… and golden on the other.

The contours of the isolinear pattern are amazingly crisp!

My ODN Scanner cannot detect any malfunction …

As Science-Fiction-Fans will know, this dagger was originally designed by the famous knife designer Gil Hibben and is called “The Jackal”. Before its use in “Nemesis” it was used several times before in SciFi and Fantasy, for example in “Buffy – The Vampire Slayer”.

Unfortunately, the knife I have is not the original from Gil Hibben. The lettering “Defender” on the blade gives that away. Also, the weapon is a little shorter overall in comparison to Hibben’s original. Finally, the blade is not really sharp. Anyway, I’m happy to have this in my collection after all. It’s a very beautiful knife and since it’s completely made from metal, it has a very nice weight.

The knife is also present on the official movie poster.

Not only a weapon but also a symbol of power.

This is presumably the stunt version with a blade of painted rubber.

Captain Picard is threatened.

A closer look revealed that this prop was nothing more than a pen-shaped butane torch with some golden vinyl tape added to the handle. When I realized that, I remembered that I had something similar in my workshop lying around for years. When I finally found it, it was exactly the same!

After I cleaned it up and added the necessary tape, it looked just like the screen-used stylus and I had another accurate prop replica in my collection.

A sharp eye can sometimes get you a new prop

Common objects, slightly altered for use as a prop are called “found items”.

There is normally a tip attached to this torch which has been removed here.