Article included with online auction on 1991 Enterprise ornament.

Selling at Warp Speed – Enterprise tree ornament is a hot item

Captain’s log, stardate 12/19/91:

A tourist from Detroit has skipped New York City’s Christmas sites to comb Hallmark stores in Manhattan looking for it.

One store at Roosevelt Field Shopping Center in Nassau County has 150 people on a waiting list crossing their fingers hoping to get it.

And 200 people a day are calling the consumer affairs office of Hallmark Cards Inc. in Kansas City screaming for it.

This object of desire is a $20 replica of the Starship Enterprise from “Star Trek” with blinking red and green lights. It is Hallmark’s most successful Christmas ornament since they launched the Hallmark Keepsake Magic Christmas Ornaments line in 1973.

At a time when it seems like nothing is selling, there doesn’t seem to be a store anywhere where the Starship hasn’t sold out.

If you didn’t buy the 5-inch-long Enterprise when it first hit area stores in July, or put your name on a waiting list along with legions of other wishful owners, there’s little hope you can get it

“This is the most demand we have ever had for a single ornament? Helgager, spokeswoman for Hallmark cards. “There are waiting lists in some stores of as many as three hundred people.”

The ornament was designed to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Star Trek television show. It also coincided with the pre-Christmas premiere of “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Coun-try.” The death of the show’s creator Gene Roddenberry apparently has also boosted interest in the already popular Star Trek paraphernalia.

“Those factors I’m sure had a lot to do with the phenomenon of the ornament,” Helgager said.

Hallmark won’t release production statistics but Helgager said there are 11,000 stores in the United States that could have ordered the ornament. Hallmark store owners in the New York area said they ordered a few dozen ornaments each back in July.

The starship first hit the shelves along with other Hallmark ornaments in July as part of a special pre-season preview for collectors and others.

“It was an immediate sellout,” said Ron Falbee, owner of LeMarc’s Hallmark Stores at Roosevelt Field Shopping Center. There are 150 people on his store’s waiting list.

“They still want it,” he said, “even if it comes in January.”