Star Trek: Lower Decks The Official Starships Collection was a monthly British display model/magazine partwork product line that premiered in January 2022 with a XL edition issue of the USS Cerritos and was published by Eaglemoss Collections under its Hero Collector imprint.
A sister publication of the Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection under the overall auspices of Project Manager Ben Robinson, it was authorized and licensed by Paramount Consumer Products (formerly ViacomCBS Consumer Products), and was originally slated to debut simultaneously in the UK and the US alike – though that intent came to naught as the Cerritos model was delayed by several months for the US – , and became marketed to a number of other countries as well. This collection was based on the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks television series.
No subscription had been offered by Eaglemoss for this collection, models were to be available to purchase from their webshop and select retailers. As usual by this time, a 16-page magazine, designed to fit within the box packaging, was slated to accompany the display models.
On 12 July 2022, the just started collection came to a sudden and unexpected halt, when the company was forced to cease its business activities under the UK Insolvency Act – meaning a company is no longer able to pay off its debts. [18] Bankruptcy was declared on 5 August 2022. [19] The remainder stock, which included already manufactured but still unreleased models, was eventually acquired by (new) Master Replicas, who started to resell individual issues on a piecemeal basis on their own revived website from April 2023 onward, until the left-over stock was depleted.
Eaglemoss Collections/Hero Collector publications |
---|
Starship collections: Official • Discovery • STO • Universe • Lower Decks |
Other collections: Build the Enterprise-D • Busts |
Book series: A Celebration • Designing Starships • Graphic Novel Collection • Nerd Search • Shipyards • Illustrated Handbook |
Other books: Mr. Spock's Little Book of Mindfulness • Star Trek Cocktails • The Book of Grudge |
Issues[]
No. | Cover | Title/Contents | Model | Lng* | Scale |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
(01) | USS Titan
04/2022
|
230 mm | 1:1974 | ||
Scheduled but cancelled 2022 release-ready issues/2023 post-bankruptcy (model-only[1]) releases | |||||
(02) | USS Vancouver[2]
04/2022 |
210 mm | 1:3052 | ||
(03) | USS Cerritos (mid-size [20])[3]
|
205 mm | 1:2611 | ||
(04) | Yosemite[4]
|
XL edition issues[]
Released three months before the Lower Decks Collection officially launched, this issue was in actuality an outing in the XL sub-collection of the originating Official Starships Collection and therefore not a formal part of the former. The accompanying magazine corresponded therefore with the standard 20-page magazine format of the originating partwork publication and not with the newly conceived format for the regular Lower Decks Collection.[5] Considering the subject matter though, this issue is for the sake of expedience considered part of this collection.
No. | Cover | Title/Contents | Model | Lng* | Scale |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
(01) | USS Cerritos[6]
01/2022
|
250 mm | 1:2141 |
Appendices[]
Footnotes[]
- ↑ All scheduled, but cancelled Eaglemoss releases had already entered regular production when the company went bankrupt and commercial quantities in the 500/2000-copy range of the display model at least had actually been produced by the manufacturer in China before production had to cease. [1][2] They were acquired from the administrators by (new) Master Replicas along with the regular remainder stock, and sold to the public after all through their webstore, starting in April 2023 with the XL edition of the USS Stargazer and the regular edition of the USS Vancouver from the main and Lower Decks collections respectively, [3] several of them selling out within a day. Third-party UK and Far Eastern eBay retailers who had managed to get their hands on a handful of these unreleased Eaglemoss issues previously – and selling them at hugely inflated prices – , had already reported that these previously unreleased models came without the magazine, they apparently not having entered the regular print-run yet by the time of the bankruptcy, [4](X) a state of affairs confirmed later on by the ones marketed by Master Replicas.
Master Replicas only included magazines if they had already been packaged with the model (which was for the previously released issues not always the case, explaining in the process the large stock of back issues), some of which in German, the only foreign language version (besides Japanese, which however fell under the auspices of DeAgostini) still being printed by the time Eaglemoss had gone bankrupt; an 100,000-copy magazine (back-)issue stock did exist at two printer-owned warehouses somewhere (possibly also holding magazines of the unreleased issues as well), but the printer refused to release them until debt owned by the bankrupt Eaglemoss was fulfilled in full. As the new formal (model) inventory owners, Master Replicas had entered into legal negotiations with the disgruntled printer and was able to resolve the issue in August 2023. [5][6][7] The sale of this magazine stock started on 26 December 2023. [8] - ↑ The models sold by Master Replicas came without the magazine, [9] but some were actually reported as having included one by third-party eBay retailers, who had managed to get their hands on a handful of copies previously. [10](X)
- ↑ Of this model 1310 copies were produced before production had to cease due to the Eaglemoss bankruptcy. [11]
- ↑ On his Twitter account, Robinson shared a tooled prototype model picture of the cancelled Yosemite issue. The model was gifted by Robinson to Lower Decks creator, Mike McMahan [12] in itself an implication that that particular model had not yet entered regular production, until Master Replicas proved otherwise on 1 June 2023 when they divulged having procured a substantial 2000-copy stock of already produced models. [13] They sold this stock on 1 September 2023. [14]
- ↑ Previously, the Eaglemoss XL versions of the USS Discovery, USS Shenzhou and the Star Trek: Discovery version of the USS Enterprise received a similar treatment, and were not formally part of their own dedicated collection either, the other Star Trek: Discovery The Official Starships Collection sister publication.
- ↑ While released, the model was only offered through the company's webstores, like the majority of the 2022 releases, including those from all other Eaglemoss collections to which customers had subscribed. This meant that relatively few 2022 models had reached their respective fanbases by the time of the Eaglemoss bankruptcy [15] – most of them having become accustomed to wait until the company fulfilled their subscription obligations – , resulting almost immediately afterwards in those being offered by aftermarket retailers starting to fetch runaway collector prices before (new) Master Replicas had entered the market, [16] because of the what Robert Meyer Burnett had called "mad dash" of collectors (of whom Burnett was one himself [17]) trying in desperation to snatch up the few remaining 2022 issues still available in the aftermarket at that point in time.
Still, after they had acquired the remainder stocks from the bankrupt company, (new) Master Replicas came to the rescue of the frustrated collector base in March 2023, when they started to resell items from the Eaglemoss model partwork lines at the last known normal retail price, which included the three 2022 unreleased issues from the Lower Decks Starships Collection.
See also[]
External links[]
Official sites[]
- Eaglemoss.com(X) – defunct official international webshop
- HeroCollector.com(X) – defunct official collector portal
- Coleção Star Trek(X) – defunct official Brazil webshop
- Star Trek Starships at Facebook - defunct
- Star Trek: Discovery Starships at YouTube – official YouTube channel with model turnaround videos (live, but no longer maintained)
- Ben Robinson (project manager) at X (formerly Twitter)
- Meshweaver.com – CG artist Fabio Passaro's portfolio galleries including work for Eaglemoss
Collector sites[]
- HeroCollector Star Trek & Sci Fi Collections Fan Group at Facebook – unofficial fan forum
- Wixiban.com – comprehensive series guide and the primary provider of cover scans and scaling information for this article
- Geekology at YouTube – Star Trek Official Starship Collection videos playlist
- The Official Starships Collection articles and reviews at TrekCore