Star Trek 5/6 Assault Phaser - Part 3 Ed Miarecki's Phasers

The Master inspects the Assault Phaser from the Doug Drexler collection, which he made.

Ed Miarecki, the long time prop creator for Star Trek, was hired by Greg Jein to make resin versions of the Star Trek 5 Assault Phaser for Star Trek VI. These versions were painted exactly like the STV versions, but were resin, whereas the Greg Jein had made fiberglass heroes and rubber stunts for ST V. Those all had metal baseplates. The ST VI version Ed supplied had metal baseplates added to his by Greg.

According to Ed, he made 12 of them initially, and within days they requested he make 12 more as those had disappeared from the set! So there are a good number of these around. However, this post deals with the subsequent castings Ed has done.

Ed still can make you a ST VI Assault Phaser out of the original molds if you like. They are beautiful pieces. But Ed doesn't paint versions that were not made for the production like the ones he delivered to the set. First of all, that paint is a pain in the butt and includes a printers ink which is a carcinogen. That is what gave the production versions that metallic look to the black paint. For all subsequent versions Ed made, including ones he gave to the Star Trek and ILM staffs he was friends with, Ed paints in a two tone Metallic grey/black. The difference is obvious and can be seen here.

While not as desirable as a production made version, this is as close as you will get to one. While the Master Replicas and Roddenberry versions are both awesome, they are not 100% accurate because of what they were cast from.

Thanks to Ed for spending a lot of time telling me about his time on Star Trek. He is a great guy and a true hero to us prop collectors.

The Assault Phaser that Ed gave as a gift to Star Trek and ILM crew members

Production Version

Star Trek 5/6 Assault Phaser - Part 2

After Star Trek V, the Assault Phaser played an even bigger role in Star Trek VI. For this production, Ed Miarecki was hired by Greg Jein to make resin Assault Phasers to supplement the Fiberglass heroes and rubber stunt versions.

Here are photos of one Ed recently sold to Josef from Austria, a long time Star Trek Prop, Costume & Auction Forum member, and the photographer and layout designer of the Battlestar Galactica Auction catalogs.

The COA from Ed states:

"This document certifies that the Star Trek Assault Phaser Prop pictured above was fabricated by me for the film "Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country". It was returned to me after the production was finished, and has been my personal collection."

Josef says the Phaser is made out of resin (Confirmed by Ed) and has 3 metal parts; the tip, the rear fins and the knob on the side. It is in very good condition with only minor scratches from production use. It did not come with a base plate attached, something Ed had allready mentionend in the eBay description. When he asked Ed if he could make him a replica, he told Josef that he never made the plates in the first place, they were fabricated and applied by someone else (Greg Jein). Also, the plates on his Phasers were simple stickers, not metal plates as found on the hero versions.

Star Trek 5/6 Assault Phaser - Part 1

After receiving a Star Trek 5 Assault Phaser from a member of the Star Trek Prop Forum, I set out to authenticate the item. Now the problem with the Phaser is not that I didn't trust the person I got it from, I did. It was that her story needed to be verified. You can't just take someone's word on where a prop came from.

So the first step was to look on the Star Trek Prop, Costume & Auction Forum, where one member had posted photos of one of the Fiberglass hero Phasers. Per Greg Jein, who made the Phasers, there were fiberglass heros and rubber stunts made. All had metal base plates with different serial numbers down there.

Here are some photos of the hero Forum member Don had of the Hero he had:

A great deal slipped by most of you...

Ed Miarecki, a long time prop maker and one of the guys who helped restore the original Enterprise TV filming miniature for the Smithsonian, sold one of his Star Trek VI Assault Phasers on eBay last week. It went for only $ 1,300!

Now, most of what is passed off on eBay as "screen used" is crap, but Ed Miarecki is a solid source as he made these. My buddy Joseph from Austria, who was in Vancouver taking photos for the Battlestar Galactica auctions, won this cheap! I told him I would pay up to $ 3,000 for it and I felt the provenance was solid.

The auction descriptiuon stated:

In 1991, I was asked to fabricate Props for "Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country". Among them were Background Assault Phaser props. This is one of those units. It is a solid, cast resin prop with METAL detail parts, and is in EXCELLENT condition with only very minor nicks. Most of these units were used in the final climactic scene of the movie.

To the best of my knowledge, this prop was probably screen-used, although I have no positive proof of this...I can definitely say that this is one of the units shipped in the first "batch"

So a good deal for Joseph!

Alec