       |
| |
... The Beta Hero
. "An original phaser and communicator used by William Shatner’'s James T. Kirk on the 1960s NBC series will be on display starting Monday at the Comic-Con Museum in San Diego. The iconic props, created in 1966, have not been seen in more than 50 years, organizers say, and will be available to purchase through auction...
... The original owner of both pieces, a late relative of the current owners, was a Hollywood prop veteran who is believed to have acquired them from a former employee at Paramount Pictures, home of Star Trek. The pistol-like phaser and communicator, which features a spinning dial, will be at the museum through July 28, then will go on the block at a Julien’s Auctions/TCM Hollywood event Nov. 9 in Los Angeles. Each piece is conservatively estimated to sell for $100,000 to $200,000." By the way, the hero phaser is the Finney/TMOST. A YouTube video has also been made about the communicator and phaser. And this image came around that time from the Julien's website, showing its auction-refurbished state:
|
||
| Beta obviously suffered substantial damage since it was last seen in the show. When found, the original aluminum moiré bezel rings, the radial pattern disks, the brass winder tube and rubber connecting hose were all sadly gone. The now non-working Minerva 30-second stopwatch was simply loose inside. The right knob on the control panel was missing, and a tiny clear rhinestone was glued to the top of the surviving left knob. The two original outer jewels were lost and replaced with aqua-colored chatons (pointed-back rhinestones). The antenna now sits even more skewed to the left than what's seen in its Catspaw (closed) close-up, whereas the top shell sits further to right on the midplate, indicating the shell once was detached and was glued back on:
The bottom shell also incurred some heat damage, with the long sides showing some warping. Lastly, carved into the flat underside's haircell texture is "E 48," whose meaning cannot be known - perhaps it was a stocking number assigned by the facility where the prop was shelved for a time after the show. |
||
 (1744 x 1348) |
|
 (3002 x 1920) |
 (2782 x 1451) |
 (2187 x 1249) |
 (1764 x 1138) |
 (1608 x 1569) |
 (2224 x 2038) |
 (1969 x 1849) |
 (1522 x 1514) |
 (1757 x 1443) |
|
These official "original find" photographs above were posted on this blog. For the auction, the communicator
of course underwent a refurbishment... |
||
|
.
|
|||
|
1 |
Moiré
Pattern - The two replacement radial line disks (one white
cardstock, the other transparent) were cut and oriented such that they
do not replicate at all the vertically aligned "spider" pattern
with its relatively few arcs as per the DOTD close-up. Also the
cardstock disk has a smaller diameter (approx. 0.94") than what
Wah put in (± 1.01"), and was installed at a greater depth
below the transparency, producing an inauthentic blotchiness in the
pattern when viewed under spot lighting. |
||
| . | |||
|
2 |
Moiré
Bezel Rings - The new outer ring has three closely spaced grooves,
which don't recreate the two faint linear features seen in DOTD and
other screencaps. |
||
| . | |||
|
3 |
Jewels
- The two non-original Aqua pointed-back rhinestones that were found
on the prop were kept. |
||
| . | |||
|
4 |
Control
Knobs - The lost right knob was replaced with the correct Aurora
slot car hub, though the wear on its chrome exceeds that on the surviving
hub. Both knobs are also now topped by small rhinestones, which
screencaps show not to be authentic. |
||
| . | |||
|
5 |
Minerva
Stopwatch - The original (non-working) timepiece, which has
some unique added features, was left entirely out of the prop, with
a fresh operative stopwatch installed instead. An opportunity
was thus missed to maximize the number of Wah's initial parts in the
comm, as the failed watch movement alone could have been easily removed
from its original chrome case and at a minimum swapped out with a functioning
one - with this working wax-adorned watch then put back in. |
||
| . | |||
|
6 |
Winder
Tube - Inside the replacement tube is a slotted brass screw
head to catch a screwdriver for rewinding the stopwatch, while Alpha's
surviving winder tube has a small peg soldered across its opening for
that purpose. |
||
| . | |||
|
7 |
Bottom Shell Side Warping - The post-show heat damage on the long sides was left uncorrected. | ||
| Our conclusion: given these many significant failures, one can only wonder how this "restoration," the term used by Julien's, was ever consented to, yet alone allowed to stand. Since the unique character (or 'personality' if you will) of each of Wah's props comes primarily from the little details he added, it's as if an entirely new hero communicator was created here that just made use of some surviving parts. The auctioneer states, "... No interventions were made beyond those needed to make the Communicator whole and functional. All of the work that was done is completely reversible. We did no more than was necessary, preserving all original Wah Chang parts still present, and we chose to leave any further decisions up to the new owner of the Communicator." However, when you consider the abundance of detailed information on this prop our site has long made public, plus the replacement parts and building methodologies that have been perfected by masters in the hobby over the years, there's no excuse for the repairs not being so beautifully spot-on that the idea they should also be "completely removable" would have seemed absurd. Since
the burden of returning Beta to screen-used accuracy was shifted by
this errant effort to the new owner, it can charitably only be called
a "refurbishment," hence that's what we'll be using ongoing. |
|||
|
|
 (1703 x 1413) |
 (2000 x 1653) |
 (1175 x 1966) |
 (1680 x 1574) |
 (1834 x 1124) |
 (1880 x 1376) |
 (1817 x 1023) |
 (1778 x 1354) |
 (1803 x 1131) |
 (1671 x 1698) |
 (1782 x 1362) |
 (1773 x 1355) |
 (1837 x 1106) |
 (1416 x 1717) |
 (694 x 613) |
 (1419 x 1720) |
|
| Julien's made a short video with Bill Shatner holding the communicator. Here are three notable images from it: | ||
 (784 x 690) |
 (393 x 998) |
 (541 x 1074) |
| Beta also made an appearance in July at San Diego's Comic Con 2024: | ||
| Despite having key parts absent or altered when first found in 2024, it wasn't hard for anyone early on to know pretty much exactly what this communicator was. It came from the same person who also had the blatantly authentic Finney/TMOST hero Phaser 2, it had all the unique hallmarks of a Wah-built comm - and a stopwatch was inside. Still, the auctioneer wanted to be rock-solid 100% sure, so some preliminary photos of the find were sent to our Expert Emeritus (the world's leading authority on TOS communicators, who two decades ago established Alpha's legitimacy) for independent corroboration. Here are a few small excerpts of some specific details that our fellow looked at to render his full assurance for Julien's... The Shell The small-pit haircell texture is a match to the 1960s-era Kydex (note - Alpha looks to have more of a shine due to different lighting):
Also the prop has no Velcro or trace of glue on the back - which is good, as Beta never actually did have Velcro. Screencaps from "Elaan of Troyius" show the comm is not elevated that approximately 3/32" like it would be if it originally had it:
The Antenna Here we have a clear match-up of every full or partial hole, wire gap and solder mark:
The back end of Beta's antenna is especially distinct, mostly due to the prominent angled gap between the sheet and wire adjacent to the right hinge wheel (the red arrow below):
The Mic Grill This small detail provides the ultimate fingerprint test. It was unexpected to see the radio mesh inverted (like in only Epsilon), so that its embossed diamonds point inside rather than outward:
In an earlier study of Beta's mic grill, where we tried using "Day of the Dove" screencaps to locate exactly where on an intact radio mesh sheet those unusual dark diagonal stripes (between the green arrows) appear...
... the possibility of the mic grill being inverted was never explored. Thus a new lighting test was required here. So standing in for the real prop is a nearly identical radio mesh placed behind a nearly identically-cut control panel, positioned so that the diamonds and holes also match the newly found comm:
When we lit our re-created mic grill similarly to how Beta was when filming "Day of the Dove," all the bright diamond facets, separated by those odd dark diagonal stripes, sure enough appear:
A mere two lit facets in our re-creation (in the upper right corner of the mic grill, circled in cyan) are not seen in "Dove." Since those bright spots should be there regardless where on the radio mesh the piece was cut from, their absence can only be attributed to a bit of dirt once lodged there. In summary, there is not the slightest bit of evidence to even remotely suggest this prop isn't fully authentic. In addition, and not to
tease, but as mentioned elsewhere on our site, there is also a "secret"
tell, a tiny but readily observable feature seen ONLY in Wah-built
communicators that is not published anywhere on HeroComm, as a deterrent
to forgers. It was happily reported to Julien's that the tell
was indeed clearly visible in the photos they supplied. 2024 Auction Details: Of the sixteen screencaps on the Julien's sales page for Beta, oddly half do not show the actual prop:
If they felt the need for additional images of communicators beyond those from "Dove" and "Catspaw," why not use instead caps of Beta from "Dagger of the Mind" and "Elaan of Troyius" that have been cataloged at the bottom of this page since 2021? Also the second paragraph in their "Screen Matching" section surprisingly contains three factual errors: "This screen matching revealed this piece in the hands of Captain James T. Kirk in the episode "Day of the Dove," one of only two instances where the movement of the central dial can be seen on screen and it is the ONLY time a hero is ever shown in close-up. It has also been matched to the classic episodes "Catspaw" and "Friday’s Child." Firstly, Beta's 'central dial' moiré pattern is seen spinning only once, in "Dove." Even more bizarre, it ISN'T the only time a hero is ever shown in close-up - Alpha is seen in close-ups twice, and both are of better quality:
That's, after all, why we way back designated that one the first, or 'alpha', hero communicator. Lastly, and sure, this might be a bit nitpicking, but while Beta does appear (barely) in "Friday's Child" the prop is so out-of-focus that no screen matching of any details is possible there:
In
summary... that
a major auction house got so many easy facts wrong with a marquee
item like this, then didn't bother to correct themselves even though
the above critique was posted well before the sale; this after also
completely muffing the prop's restoration, is depressing - and, frankly,
a little disquieting. |
On November 8, 2024, the Beta hero communicator sold to an unknown collector for a base amount of $600,000, plus 30% auction fees of $180,000, totaling $780,000. The auction was
posted on YouTube,
where the sale came up at time stamp 1:24:21. |
All
its original and auction refurbishment elements are discussed in full detail
starting here...
.
It must be said before anything else that the survival of Beta's stopwatch is nothing short of a miracle. Nearly everything that made this communicator a hero version was broken off and lost long ago. Yet whoever in the past patched up what remained and screwed back on the bottom shell - while having absolutely no earthly reason to do so - kept the then-useless, weighty stopwatch inside! May the gods grant that soul everlasting favor. What's pictured in the Julien's website "up for auction" photo further above is, on the right, the non-functioning, handless 30-second Minerva watch that came in the communicator. The yellow blob stuck on the back (also seen in some of the pics of the found prop through the hole in the shell, as the watch inside was upside down) is believed to be a wax disk (with a color in fact akin to a natural beeswax, like this product from Michael's Arts & Crafts). If so, it's one of those brilliant touches by Wah - undoubtedly his way of securing the watch tight to the top shell by keeping it wedged in by the bottom shell. Also note on the rewind knob the dark vulcanized remnants of the rubber hose he used to connect it to his brass winder tube. One curious item of note is the near-total absence of any glue to hold the watch in, unlike with Alpha's stopwatch, which is held in by a generous amount of hot glue. Did Beta's glue over time break off from the now-separate watch casing and midplate, or was little to none used? There may be no way of ever knowing. A second (replacement) Minerva stopwatch seen in the original Julien's website picture is not in a newer version of the same photo, likely meaning it's not included in the sale (or if it is, it certainly isn't worth highlighting). So let's talk about Wah's Minerva stopwatch. It's quite a different animal from what he put in Alpha, being a little larger and a lot heavier:
Note the hinge at the bottom of the Minerva's back cover, which when opened reveals an internal (also-hinged) inner dust shield:
But like with the Alpha stopwatch, Wah took off all unnecessary parts to reduce the bulk:
The main structural difference between the two stopwatches is the movement (the mechanical innards) in Alpha's could be removed through the back, allowing the watch's chromed outer casing to stay glued into the prop if the movement failed and needed to be replaced. However, the Minerva watch in Beta has its movement extracted from the front, meaning that if it failed the entire watch would have to be taken out. This may have been why Wah glued the two watches in differently, with him perhaps relying heavily on the wax pad in Beta in lieu of an abundance of adhesives. The one way
the two hero stopwatches are similar is their lack of a reset button,
meaning both had a three-click function: |
|||
|
1st Click 2nd Click 3rd Click |
- |
Starts the timing. Stops the timing. Resets to zero (snapping back faster than the eye can see). |
|
As for the wax on the back cover, it can be reasoned that Wah, as a final step in building the comm, put a small glob of warmed, pliable (and lightweight) beeswax on the installed stopwatch's back and pressed down the bottom shell over it, smushing out the wax while filling in the gap, thus pushing the stopwatch tighter against the top shell. However, the same later heat (likely from bad storage) that warped the bottom shell's sides must have also altered the wax's original shape, as it looks to have since flowed a bit to one side. One other lost original element inside yet to be mentioned was a thin spacer that needed to be placed between the shell and the stopwatch face - this to elevate the watch over the bit of the hinge axle epoxy that ended up at a spot where the watch would otherwise sit. This spacer very possibly took the shape of a wide, flat washer, around 1/16 to 1/8" thick, likely held on by the long bead of glue that still partially circles at the edge of the shell's moiré hole. It cannot be known what the part was made of, but our guess would be something humble (and lightweight), such as cardboard or sheet balsa. 2024 Refurbishment Details: It's assumed the replacement stopwatch now in Beta is also a Minerva, but since no photos of the refurbished insides were ever released, it is not known if it's like the original without a reset button, or like the pictured extra watch with (which don't snap back to zero on the third press - they just continue running where they last stopped). It's also highly likely the new watch does not have a similar wax pad added to more faithfully re-create the original look. It's worth noting that it is straightforward to take out and put back in the movements from these Minerva watches with the removal of just three screws...
... and so it would have
been readily possible to install back into the communicator a good
percentage of the original watch parts by swapping out from Wah's
casing the failed movement for one that was still running, and using
then that (now-working) watch instead. This would have allowed
the preservation inside the prop of the original winder knob (with
its remnants of the rubber tube) and that ingenious wax pad
on the casing's back cover. Given, however, that we see in the
Julien's photo the original stopwatch intact outside the refurbished
comm, it's reasonable to assume this was not attempted. |
|||
Even though it was a hero, most of the shots we get of Beta's control well are from a distance, though just from these we know the original center rhinestone was red, both outers were AB coated, and in particular the left (from its green flash in "Dagger") was likely an Emerald AB:
Then there's the magnificent close-up in Day of the Dove, which locks down everything pretty tight. The left was almost assuredly a 20ss Emerald AB and the right had the same white/pinkish glow as Alpha's 16ss Crystal AB:
Most of these caps show a center jewel of very-red Light Siam, but the highlights of orange and yellow in Frames 3 and 4 above mean it's far more likely the same 16ss Hyacinth that's currently on the prop. 2024 Refurbishment Details: The two original outer jewels were replaced in the past with 16ss Aqua chatons. They look to be hot-glued in:
The auctioneer
chose for some reason to keep these aqua rhinestones. |
|||
| Originally: . |
Left |
Center |
Right |
|
 |
 |
 |
||
| Top Choice Other Possibilities |
20ss Emerald AB 20ss Blue Zircon |
16ss Hyacinth |
16ss Crystal AB 16ss Light
Amethyst AB |
|
| 2024 Auction: |  |
|
|
|
16ss
Aqua pointed-back |
16ss
Hyacinth |
16ss
Aqua pointed-back |
||
| To know what Beta's original moiré pattern looked like, we fortunately have very good data from "Day of the Dove," albeit for a short length of time (about 2˝ seconds). Still, that has allowed us to offer a concise assessment of what was there. Of course, just like in the Alpha hero, it used two overlapping Edmund Scientific #4 radial line patterns; the top transparent layer glued in place while the 1-inch diameter white cardstock layer - attached to a 30-second stopwatch - rotates below, creating the famous "spider" effect that's actually an ever-moving whirl of growing and shrinking arcs:
To see if Beta's spider pattern originally behaved like Alpha's - rotating along with the stopwatch, 360 degrees every 30 seconds - we started with the two sharp caps you see above; one early and one late in the shot. The goal in each was to "re-circle" the moiré bezel ring, accurately restoring its circular shape and orientation; this to then compare them. Nicely in these images we have two consistent reference lines at a near-exact right angle to each other and on planes parallel to the bezel ring: 1) the top edge of the control panel, and 2) the right bottom fold of the control well. These lines, when copied and moved to form a box (in red below) around the bezel ring, eventually allowed us to correct for the changing viewing angle and camera-zoom while Kirk lowers the comm in his hands...
The resulting red parallelograms were righted, skewed back into rectangles, and the bezel rings contained within - at this point ovals - were reduced in the long axis to return them to circles. Note that while in 2.4 seconds the stopwatch would have rotated the bottom layer nearly 29 degrees, the spider pattern turned only about 9 degrees:
So what's going on here? To figure it out, we sought to reproduce in Photoshop this strange motion by shifting around the position of two Pattern #4 layers while rotating one of them. And indeed one positioning closely replicates what's in the screenshots; with the bottom rotating layer a tiny 0.008" off-center and the top transparent layer 0.023" off-center to the right (the cyan crosshairs mark the stopwatch axle beneath):
According to our study, over the course of the full 30 second stopwatch rotation, the "spider" roughly maintains a vertical orientation but with some wobble, leaning first to the right and then to the left, then back again. The first two images in the simulated sequence below, at 0.0 and at 2.5 seconds, contains the portion captured in "Day of the Dove":
In real life, disks cut to our exact specifications (along with the bezel rings - see below) would match up about like this:
Note - the picture above right is of a precision replica currently under construction by one of our friends that's aiming to perfectly emulate Beta's look in "Dove," and when done a video of its operation will be posted here - to inspire and aid your future builds. 2024 Refurbishment Details: Beta's missing original moiré disks were replaced for the sale. Its operation is seen in the YouTube video for a duration of about eight seconds:
Since these clips don't show at all the pattern or orientation seen in "Day of the Dove" nor any portion of our simulated sequence just above, it's obvious the disks were neither cut nor positioned as per our measurements, which have been posted here since 2021. The new spinning disk also measures from photographs (using an easy pixel-ratio method, shown below) to be almost exactly 1/16" smaller in diameter than the 1.01" seen in both Beta's original and Alpha's cardstock disks:
Thus the surface area of the new spider pattern is only 87 percent that of Wah's original. !Moiré Pattern Vertical Gap Next, was the original top transparency installed with the ink-side up, like in Alpha (so the lines are exposed to the outside), or down? You may think this is a trivial aspect, but it's actually huge when the centers of both top and bottom patterns are very close to each other, as they were in Beta. The variable at play here is the amount of vertical gap between the two surfaces with printed ink. When the two sets are tight together (i.e. the transparency's ink is down, almost touching the spinning layer), the spider arcs appear uniform, dark, and with well-defined edges. However, when the ink is up, the vertical separation caused by the mere thickness of the transparency plastic is enough to make room for a shadow to be cast of the top layer onto the bottom (especially when the prop is lit by a point source). This "third" set of lines generates unexpected and even bizarre blotchy patterns like those below:
Since no evidence of these effects is present in the "Day of the Dove" close-up, it can be reasoned that Beta's original transparency was ink-side down, plus the bottom disk also rotated level and VERY close - studies indicate less than 0.02" - to the transparency's underside. 2024 Refurbishment Details: The vertical distance between the new transparency and paper disk is more than that, which now creates the inauthentic blotchy, speckled moiré pattern when the prop is viewed under point source lighting:
Transparency Hole Lastly, a cap from "Dagger of the Mind" tells us the original top transparency had the same hole in its center as does Alpha (which is 1/32" or 0.031" in diameter), and there's no reason to think Wah wouldn't have used the same drill bit on both:
2024 Refurbishment Details: The hole in the replacement transparent layer has been sized from photos via the pixel-ratio method to have a diameter of ±0.06, double Alpha's. * * * * * * The
subject of moiré patterns is discussed in greater detail on our A
Moiré Story page.
And the means to print out clear, accurate Pattern #4 images can be
found here. |
||||
Since the found communicator no longer has its original bezel rings, we once again need to dive into screencaps. Given that all but one communicator (Delta) is known to have grooves carved into its bezel's side, you'd figure Beta - a hero, after all - would surely have them as well. Yet unlike with Alpha, it's been difficult to isolate in caps any definitive proof of them. There is, however, strong evidence: Interpretation remains open as to exactly what's there in those red ovals, but it is reasonable to conclude something is there to interpret. In both Day of the Dove and Dagger of the Mind, some caps show traces of linear features right where you'd expect grooves to be. Whether, though, any given light or dark line fragment is the inside of a groove or the outer surface right next to one is hard to determine. However, after tracing with our usual diligence the clearest "Dove" screencap, we conclude these below are the best lines and dimensions that can possibly be determined:
These dimensions, when CNC-lathed into aluminum, compare to the goal like this:
2024 Refurbishment Details: The Beta refurbishment has in its new outer bezel ring, oddly instead, three grooves near the top:
|
||||
2024 Refurbishment Details: Only the left knob survived, with the right having been replaced for the refurbishment with a more heavily worn Aurora slot car hub Type "C". And there was also a surprise seen in the "found prop" photographs - the existence of a small, clear, faceted rhinestone that had prior been glued to the top of the remaining left hub (red arrow below):
Our guess is that clear gem on the left is a Swarovski 8ss Crystal chaton (pointed-back rhinestone) applied not by Wah but likely at the same later time the two larger aqua chatons were installed on the outer jewel bezels. Now while it is true that screencaps from 1st Season's Dagger of the Mind seem to hint of such raised jewels crowning Beta's knobs...
... further study (below) shows those bright spots to be just that; glare from the studio lights reflecting off the hubs' chrome:
This, plus
the fact that no other Wah-built comm has rhinestones seen there,
nor have any of the rhinestones he did use been shown to be pointed-back,
means the greenish (10ss Chrysolite?) chaton gem added to the replacement
right knob is also inauthentic. Had we been consulted by Julien's
on this, we would have even suggested the removal of the clear stone
from the surviving knob, likely thus best returning the knob to the
look it had in Season 3. |
||||
!The Shells On the top shell where it meets the midplate, there is a considerable band of old glue worked up the sides. Since there's no indication of this glue in screencaps it's likely from the old reassembly, after the prop was damaged, when the top was no doubt reglued (and shifted a bit to the right) onto the midplate. The bottom shell has heat warping along its long edges that's not seen in the limited screencap views of the prop's underside, so it can be reasoned to have come from poor storage after the show. 2024 Refurbishment Details: The top shell's excess glue issue was left alone. Regarding the bottom shell, no corrections to the warping were made, noting that just as Kydex is formed and mal-formed with heat, it can also be re-formed and corrected with a touch of localized heat, especially when one can guide the shape back to true via a castings from another original Wah-built communicator, which the worker possessed. The Antenna The antenna now sits when closed more angled to the left than it did during the show, and some of the soldered connections to the wire near the hinge wheels are broken. The wire is the usual brass. The hinge wheel stop peg looks to be a short, bent snip of a steel wire soldered into the right wheel:
2024 Refurbishment Details: The antenna looks to have been untouched during the work. Brass Winder Tube Though the original winder tube is gone, it's reasonable to assume it was similar to Alpha's part, which is an inch-long, 7/32" diameter brass tube with a 1/16" diameter brass peg soldered across its opening to engage a flathead screwdriver:
2024 Refurbishment Details: Inside the new tube there's, rather, the head of a slotted brass screw:
|
||||
| We see portions of Beta's underside just twice (below), and in both is observed the same front/left screw, although one time it's clearly a brass flat-ish head, while curiously the other time it looks (since the more-vertically oriented pixels lack any yellow lean) like a steel round head:
When the prop was found, two 1/2" 2-56 screws survived; coincidentally one a steel slotted round head (like what's in Alpha) and - for the first time ever found in a Wah comm... a brass slotted PAN head. What the two other original screws were we will never know.
2024
Refurbishment Details:
Two new brass slotted round head screws - a type not
verified to have been used in Wah communicator - were added for the
refurbishment (no image is needed here). |
||||
|
This first cap above from "Catspaw" is when the comm initially appears, at the end of a bright "magical" flash. Note how you can still see the watch winder tube poking out just under the midplate, whereas in the later, cleaner shot below, it's almost completely invisible in the shadow:
To demonstrate that Blu-Ray HD screen caps can't help when an item is simply out of focus, here is Alpha in Friday's Child along with Beta in the background, in the only shot both hero communicators are seen together. In standard DVDs, Beta showed essentially no useful details. Now with nearly five times the pixilation, it still doesn't:
|
||||
| Star Trek is a Registered and Copyrighted Trademark of Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved. All subject matters referring to Star Trek are trademarks of Paramount Pictures. This website has not been produced or endorsed by Paramount Pictures. Any material belonging to Paramount’s Copyrighted Material that may appear on this site complies with fair and/or acceptable use for the purposes of review, study, criticism, or news reporting. |
