For almost three decades, one of the most famous pieces of furniture in Star Trek history was lost. The Captain’s chair of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D, introduced in The Next Generation’s second season and seen on-screen all the way through to the series’ conclusion in 1994, by the time the Enterprise set was refreshed for Star Trek: Generations, Picard’s perch had vanished… until very, very recently.
The chair was revealed for the first time in decades as part of a huge upcoming haul of Star Trek, Star Wars, and other film and TV props announced for auction by Propstore last month and set to go up for bid this week. The Captain’s chair—which the memorabilia company went to great lengths to screen-match and prove that it was indeed the long-lost, screen-used “Hero” chair—was expected to auction for around $US50,000 to $US100,000. But now TrekCore reports that, on the day of the auction’s opening, Propstore has agreed to return the chair to CBS, 30 years since it went missing.
“Through a valued partnership between Propstore Ltd. and CBS Studios Inc., an amicable agreement among all parties involved has been reached to restore Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s iconic Star Trek: The Next Generation captain’s chair to the Star Trek Archive,” a statement on Propstore’s website now reads. “The chair will be preserved as a piece of science fiction history. While the whereabouts of the chair had been unknown for three decades, the Star Trek Archive is currently working on plans to showcase it for Star Trek fans to see firsthand in the coming year.”
Given the history behind the prop—not just its place in Star Trek history, but its almost equally surprising legend as a long-lost piece of TV history—it’s good that the chair will now be preserved by CBS, not just for the sake of archival record, but so that it can appear for the public to see in an official capacity instead of sitting in a private collection. After 30 years in the ether, the most famous recipient of the Picard maneuver (the tugging of his uniform jacket, rather than the tactical move) will now hopefully be treated and preserved with the respect it deserves.
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