In the mid 1990s, an avid Trek fan and occasional prop collector got a call from friend working at a nearby memorabilia store, asking if he wanted to look at some unusual props an older gentleman had brought in to sell.  Once there, this fan saw a hero communicator, midgrade hand phaser ("P1"), midgrade pistol phaser ("P2"), medical hypo spray, plus a hero medical scanner, Garth remote, and a Stratosian weapon.  Being familiar with replicas and forgeries and never having seen anything like what was before him, he bought them all; a few at a time as paychecks allowed.  After a while, he sold off the later three to defray the total expense.  Those three ended up changing hands several times before being acquired via Profiles in History auctions by Paul Allen and now are on display in his Science Fiction Museum in Seattle behind glass next to the Delta communicator and a tricorder.

Still not being completely sure of the authenticity of the remainder, the collector first contacted us in October 2006, shortly after our launch, to examine his communicator.  The rest is history.  He has also generously allowed both us and other hobbyists full access to what he has and what he knows.  The comm has easily shown itself in every definitive way to absolutely be the genuine Alpha we see on the TV screen.  The phasers and hypo were a steeper climb in that there was little to compare them to.  No other known genuine midgrades were readily available for the task, although the P1 from an East Coast collector (with excellent provenance intact) is a perfect visual match with identical unique details never seen before in any later phaser copy.  The hypo appears to be one in screen caps (from "Return to Tomorrow") but is slightly different from other possible survivors.  However, given its impressive companions, it is not too much of a stretch to figure it is genuine too.

(3363 x 1761)