Xena Stuff

Lucy Lawless interview on EW -- Merkin mention (!?)

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:35:00 +0000

Dinosaur HCNBs will recall that the piece of fur on the end of Gabrielle's gabwhacker is referred to as a "merkin." Go ahead, look it up, I'll wait. OR, watch this backstage ComicCon interview by Michael Ausiello with Lucy Lawless, promoting Spartacus. You'll learn what a merkin is there and you will never be the same. LL is relaxed, in high spirits and looks really happy. Nice to see. Anyone get STARZ in their cable package?

http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/07/27/wanna-see-lucy-lawless-completely-naked/

Props: Orignal or Reproduction?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:45:00 +0000

I've written about this problem before but recent eBay auctions bring the subject to the fore again. Original Xena props are hotly collectible, in particular Xena swords and chakrams of both designs. But original props are truly rare. And a large number of reproduction props were made to satisfy the needs of fans who could neither obtain a rare original prop or afford the much higher price an original prop would command.

eBay is one place where we see a lot of reproduction Xena props offered for sale as "original" or even "screen used" items. If all of the items offered for sale as "original" or "screen used" (and here I am still only talking about chakrams and Xena swords, though Gab Staffs might be added to this list) you would have a pile of props many times the number truly made for use on the show. The story about splinters from the "true Cross" comes to mind.

The source for these particular prop reproductions are varied: Todd Coyle's items (both unlicensed and licensed versions), those sold by Creation but made in New Zealand, those made by Icons (old design chakrams only), and the few one-offs I've seen made by both skilled and not so skilled individuals. Each of these sources have produced reproductions that have specific physical characteristics which are distinguishable from each other.

Some of these prop reproductions come with dubious or even no paperwork. There are very few "certificates of authenticity" sources that the collectors' network accept as legitimate. For the unknowing or inexperienced, it is easy to be fooled into thinking that an item they've purchased is an "original" prop when it's really a reproduction.

Frankly, some people don't care if they are buying a reproduction and some people only collect that type of prop. That's fine. It's the sellers who try to sell reproductions as "original" that get to me because new collectors might not know the difference and could end up spending a lot more money on a piece than it's worth. Trying to re-sell it to another collector is often the time that the buyer finds out the truth about a piece, and that's not a good experience.

And finally, this problem is not limited to the Hercules and Xena collecting community but is inherent in prop and costume collecting in general. You'll find the same issues for collectors of items from other television shows and movies. Be sure to ask a lot of questions before bidding or buying.

Be careful out there and Happy Hunting!

Collector from the XPH Network has a few items up on eBay

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:37:00 +0000

Fellow collector and Xena Prop House regular Scott Williams has put up a few Hercules and Xena items up on eBay. You can check out all of his current auctions by clicking here. Two items to highlight are Octavius' costume Roman tunic and a corset design for a costume Lucy wears in the episode "Heart of Darkness." Below are photos and screencaps that I grabbed from Scot's auctions:

You can see the white tunic underneath Octavius' armor and belt.

This corset design, which looks silk-screened, is interesting because it mimics the design of Xena's copper and leather armor. Anyway, check out Scott's other items and Happy Hunting!

Original Xena Comic Book Cover Art

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:24:00 +0000

For those of you looking for original published Xena art, opportunities are rare. Here's one: Fabiano Neves original cover art for Army of Darkness vs. Xena. There is a nice rendition of Bruce Campbell as both Ash and Autolycus.

X:WP and Young Hercules eBay finds

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 03 May 2009 13:11:00 +0000

Young Hercules stunt double costume (from the Turners Auction catalog) is up on ebay:

The same seller has a few other items. For those of you interested in anything connected with Ares, she has a leather and chainmail vest worn by one of Ares' soldiers on X:WP and she includes a couple of nice screen shots to show us just where (love the crazy Xena grin on Lucy):

Check out the rest of this seller's offerings: there are a couple of swords (including a Draxal sword), other costume pieces, and jewelry. Most are from the Turners Auction and some are from It's A Wrap!

Have fun and Happy Hunting!

Creation Xena Sword on ebay

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:27:00 +0000

The seller should describe this sword as a reproduction, but this is one of the swords sold by Creation and made by the same folks in NZ who made the screen-used props. These were made to sell to fans, not use on the show. The COA is signed by Adam and Gary, the principles of Creation Entertainment.

Rare Resin Xena Prop Katana on eBay

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:46:00 +0000

Fellow Xena prop collector and all around great gal, Ellie, has a rare Xena prop sword on eBay. You will see a lot of Xena "prop" katanas around -- metal versions were sold as reproductions by Creation and Davis Anderson. This one is different. It's a hard resin version of Xena's katana. For battle and fight scenes, weapons were replicated in a softer materials to minimize the possibility of anyone getting hurt. This resin sword is one of those props and you can see that one edge looks to have taken some hits. As Ellie says in her description, she is only aware of one other hard resin Xena katana, making this sword pretty rare. The auction link is in the title of this post.

Good luck and Happy Hunting!

Are you at the Xena Convention this weekend?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:30:00 +0000

I am not -- I'm working on my dissertation.

However, are there any collectors there this weekend? Any interesting prop or costume "gets" at the convention this year in the auction?

There are people sending in reports on the bulletin boards, or you can check out the liveblogging that is being posted on AfterEllen.com.

Happy Hunting!

Battlestar Galactica Auction Prices Realized

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:24:00 +0000

You might be wondering how the BSG costume, prop, and set dressing auction went last weekend. You can download a PDF file with all of the prices realized for every lot that went up for auction here. I don't have a name to put to the file to thank properly, but I'd like to thank Scott Lukas Williams for the link (he's also a Xena collector -- you can see his collection here).

As he pointed out to me in his email, Lucy Lawless' D'Anna outfits went fairly cheaply and the lots were evenly divided between internet bidders and floor bidders. Here are LL's outfits again with the prices realized.

From my read of the prices realized (and of course, I know these aren't official results) but it looks as though none of the ships sold (they are all listed as "Passed"). And only a handful of lots broke the $10K barrier:

$10,500 Adama's Duty Blues Uniform Lot 103

$14,000 Starbucks Flight Suit Lot 111
$13,000 Head Six's Red Dress Lot 260
$17,500 Adama's Painting "The Cyclon War" Lot 742
$16,000 Command Plotting Table Lot 775

Remember too, that there were 185 auctions ending yesterday on eBay under the seller propworx. They say on the auction website that they are putting up an additional 1200 items for 3 day auctions only -- all will end on Friday. Happy hunting and good luck!

Battlestar Galactica Auction this weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:57:00 +0000

The big BSG live auction is this weekend. The preview is tomorrow at the Pasadena Convention Center (we've all been THERE, haven't we?) and the auction will happen Saturday and Sunday. I'd been asked when Lucy Lawless' costumes would be up for auction and there is a barebones schedule on the FAQ page. From my read on the schedule below, LL's costumes will be auctioned on Saturday (Lots 1-399). Good luck to any of you out there hoping to snag some items.

Also, be advised, only registered bidders will be admitted to the live auction (each registered bidder can bring one guest). You also must be in possession of a catalog or you must purchase a catalog on site. Preview day, however, is free and open to the general public. Here is the schedule:

Friday, January 16th, 2009
- Preview Day / Galactica Behind the Scenes (Panels with BSGs production crew from the art, costume, prop, set decoration and set construction crews.)
  - Richard Hudolin, Production Designer: 11:00 A.M. PT
  - Ken Hawryliw, Prop Master: 12:00 P.M. PT
  - Doug McLean, Art Director: 1:00 P.M. PT
  - Jonathan Lancaster, Set Decorator: 2:00 P.M. PT
  - Glenne Campbell, Costume Designer: 4:00 P.M. PT
- Time: 10:00 A.M. PT—5:00 P.M. PT
- Registration Opens: 10:00 A.M. PT
Saturday, January 17th
- Live Auction, Day 1: Lots # 1-399
- Time: 9:00 A.M. PT—6:00 P.M. PT
- Registration Opens at 8:00 A.M. PT
Sunday, January 18th
- Live Auction, Day 2: Lots # 400-800
- Time: 10:00 A.M. PT—7:00 P.M. PT
- Registration Opens at 9:00 A.M. PT

Also, Propworx has put up about 185 items on Ebay -- these all end on the 19th, the day after the live auctions have ended.

Happy New Year & some ebay items

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:05:00 +0000

I hope you are all having a great New Year's holiday -- mine is nearly over -- I go back to work on Monday. I was scanning ebay and found a few things -- but they are ending today. You'll have to be quick if you are interested.

Livia's Helmet (double) from the Turners auction (apparently)

Sword from X:WP -- interesting design. Does anyone recognize it? In the description it says it's a Gabby sword from Anthony and Cleopatra. It comes with a COA from It's A Wrap! Too bad it was photographed against such a busy cloth pattern -- it's hard to see the details of the sword. For both of these auctions, screen caps would have been useful.

Also, contact me here or Barbie at the Xena Prop House Newsletter -- there is a collector in the network who has a complete Todd Coyle Xena costume (the iconic brown leathers) for sale.

Take care and happy hunting!

Friends, Food, and Xena: Warrior Princess

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:48:00 +0000

I hope that everyone is engaged in fun and fabulous holiday activities. Most of our Christmas guests have left and the house is beginning to go back to "normal" levels of busyness. The day after Christmas, the Snowdeal Twins, Carol and Coral, paid us a visit. You may have seen the Twins at many a Xena Convention -- back in the day, they were ubiquitous and most often seen in the front row of the SoCal cons, but I digress. This trip, they helped us with turkey leftovers, and a poker game was organized for the evening. The next day, I followed the Twins upstairs for something that I had just learned was something they always did when they visited: they had pictures taken of themselves next to the Xena display in the hallway. Carol told me that she did this EVERY TIME she visited -- I had no idea. This time, I grabbed my own camera, so here they are:

Happy Holidays, everyone! And here's to a great 2009!

Battlestar Galactica Costumes, Props, Set Dressings, etc.. Auction

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:04:00 +0000

If you frequent other X:WP sites you've already heard of this very large auction of BSG items. This auction will occur over 2 days in January (17th and 18th) at the Pasadena Convention Center -- a site well known to Xena Convention attendees.

I'm still going through the nicely produced auction catalog (why in the heck didn't we get one of these when the X:WP/H:TLJ auctions were done?) and you'll find Lucy Lawless D'Anna outfits on pages 105 and 106 (see below):

But why settle on a costume worn by LL when you can have a Mark VII Viper of your very own? The auction estimate for the plane is $50-60K.

Going through the catalog, it looks as though the auction is composed of nicely cherry-picked items -- in other words, there probably aren't a lot of bargins here. There are interviews with the set designer, prop master, and costume designers, making this catalog a little more than just a genre TV prop and costume auction. Undoubtedly there are a lot of more items to be had, but this auction is very much like a museum of BSG items, nice and creamy, with no crapola. And the auction estimates reflect this very well.

Download your own catalog in high-res PDF here. And the company running the auction has a website and blog to try to drum up excitement over the auction. I think the items do that all by themselves. The auction is also co-sponsored by The SciFi Channel and Universal. Is there anyone planning to go to his event? If so, drop me a line and we can meet up (it might be really fun to watch the auction -- though you can do that online as well).

Happy Thanksgiving!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:50:00 +0000

Today is the day we gather around friends and family to feast on a very large roasted bird and give thanks. I think counting one's blessings is a good practice to keep, not just on Thanksgiving, but every day. I am especially thankful this year for the colorful, fun and vibrant X:WP collector's community -- for sharing information, fellowship, and collecting enthusiasm.

Have a great Thankgiving!

New York Chocolate Show Puts Wonder Woman, Bat Girl and Company in Candy Costumes

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:05:00 +0000

Fellow Xenite LuceC found this online -- and the blurb below is from the mtv.com article. "Perfect replica of the brown leather outfit worn by ... Lucy Lawless"? Hmmmm, not so much. Hello -- Xena didn't wear a hat/headpiece.

clipped from splashpage.mtv.com

There was a perfect replica of the brown leather outfit worn by “Xena the Warrior Princess” Lucy Lawless, but in Valrhona’s dark Caraibe chocolate — the headpiece dripped in chocolate coins and the skirt had sugar dots-like rivets. In all, it was about 15 pounds of chocolate.

It's Time for XPH Volume 2!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:23:00 +0000

For the 2nd time, Barbie at Xena Prop House and Tedra at Fine Blank Books are producing another volume of the XPH Newletter. You can check out some of the custom covers Tedra did for the last volume over at her web site -- truly beautiful work.

We're nearly 1/2 of the way through Volume 3 -- the XPH Newsletter is still going strong, informing and connecting the H:TLJ and X:WP collector community. Check it out if you haven't done so already.

New Acquisitions and New Poll on the Right

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:28:00 +0000

If you have the inclination and wish to reveal a little about your Xena collection NEEDS, check out the poll on the right.

My friend Ellie has been selling a large portion of her truly excellent original Xena prop and costume collection, as I've posted recently, and I've also dipped into her items for sale. Here are a few items I picked up from her, all of these came from the It's A Wrap sales and had all the paperwork to go with them:

Complete Xena Costume with Resin Armor (boots are a stuntie's). You will also see a Xena Sword and Scabbard -- the sword is resin and closed cell foam and the scabbard is leather and is one of the shorter versions:

Original GabStaff -- this is a GabStaff I owned originally but had traded it to Ellie about 5 years ago. When she mentioned it was for sale, I re-purchased it:

I'll put these and some detail photos up on my collection site.

Great Xena Prop Items on eBay

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:33:00 +0000

My friend Ellie has more great Xena prop and costume items up on eBay. Her documentation is impeccable to do along with her first rate items. Those wings are truly stunning.

Callisto's Angel Wings worn by Hudson Leick

Sacred Katana Sword from "A Friend in Need"

Renee O'Connor Gabrielle Hero Sword

Evil Xena Shower Curtain found on eBay

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:44:00 +0000

Back in the day when there was very little Xena merchandise to be had, fans were creating their own XenaStuff. Most fans made these items for their own use (stuff to get signed at conventions) or to trade with other fans. A very few sold some of their items -- although not always in an appropriate way (there was one fan who would come to my Xena gatherings at my house and bring home-made Xena magnets to sell -- totally tacky). OK, sorry for that snarky digression. The deal was -- people knew what they were doing was unlicensed and illegal, but no one was making any money on it.

This particular item reminds me of those days, but this seller paints shower curtains for a living, though it's unclear that any of the designs being used are actually licensed. Whatever. If however, you simply cannot live without showering with Evil Xena, then here is your chance:

Don LaFontaine (1940-2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:53:00 +0000

You may have heard that voice over great Don LaFontaine passed away yesterday in Los Angeles -- another wonderful voice gone too soon. He is the voice over artist who recorded over 5000 movie trailers and also gave us the opening sequence of Xena: Warrior Princess:

You can read his obituary in today's Los Angeles Times.

(More images over at http://www.juicy-flawless.org)

Getting My Sale Organized

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:04:00 +0000

8/14 update on this photo -- I've not even sent out my list to Barbie at XPH but several of these daggers are already spoken for. The ones with an asterisk are being held pending sale. One has already sold outright. Thanks, everyone!

I've been organizing the items that I'll be selling soon and found my collection of fifteen different daggers from X:WP and H:TLJ. These were all purchased during It's A Wrap's weekend "garage sale" -- that was near the end of the online auctions and a lot of items were sold in a "garage sale" fashion. I picked up one of every different dagger I could find in all of the piles of daggers there and this is the group I ended up with.

How many daggers do you recognize?

Chakram Poll and Catching Up

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:41:00 +0000

I'm just back from a trip to attend a family wedding and it seems as though it's been a little quiet in Xena Collecting Land. The best selling at the moment is going on privately as my friend Ellie is disbursing a large portion of her excellent and impeccably documented prop and costume collection. She put a few small items on ebay a little while back, but the best items are being sold off-eBay and inside the Xena collecting community. As I've written in the past, this is usually the way the best and most expensive items are bought and sold: privately. I purchased a number of items myself and will be posting them on my One Fan's Collection site in the near future.

The prop chakram poll on the right closed recently and the results are interesting. Homemade chakrams showed up at the very first Hercules and Xena Convention in 1997 (back then they covered both shows) and it seems as though it was one of fandom's favorite props to make or collect. Surprisingly, more people voted that they owned one of Todd Coyles's new design (yin-yang) chakrams than any other type. I didn't differentiate between the solid and 2-piece versions he sold/sells through Davis Anderson and perhaps I should have. I did notice that the first person to vote in this poll hit every category except the last one, so I suspect that individual was just messing with the poll results.

Happy Hunting!

XenaStuff Wordle

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:13:00 +0000

I know it's a little silly, but the concept is just a more artistic-looking tag cloud. You can input individual words or type a URL (which is what I did here). Click here to create your own Wordle.

You can tweak your "Wordle" by altering the font, color palette, order, and layout. Fun!

Another Xenafest is History

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:57:00 +0000

The 14th annual Xena gathering occurred yesterday and a good time was had by all -- we ate Anne's wonderful pulled pork sandwichs and whoopie pies, settling down to view the first 8 episodes of X:WP Season 2 (Orphan of War to Return of Callisto). It had been a while since I had watched some of these eps and it was good to have the refresher. We MSTK3000'd a couple of eps, but in a hardcore nutball loving way.

A competetive poker game and pool tournament were also held and the sound of so much laughter throughout the house was such a good thing.

Until next year...........