Rob Klein at Julien’s Auctions: Star Trek 60th Anniversary

Posted on September 8, 2026 by James Moore-McDermott in Auction News

Julien’s Marks Star Trek‘s 60th Anniversary With On Air, Featuring Historian and Collector Rob Klein

Sixty years ago, “The Man Trap” beamed into American living rooms and Star Trek began its long march from cancelled network drama to global mythology. Julien’s Auctions marks the anniversary with the next installment of On Air, its livestreamed pop culture drop. Watch, bid and win as entertainment historian and collector Rob Klein joins the broadcast for a sale built around the franchise that helped invent modern fandom.

It has been two years since Julien’s last sailed into Star Trek territory with Bid Long & Prosper, the 2024 sale that saw William Shatner reunite with his original series phaser and communicator on stage at Infinity Festival. On Air continues that relationship with the franchise’s collectors, arriving live on the exact date the Enterprise first launched.

Klein brings a rare vantage point to the conversation. He is Vice President of Creative Development at Sid & Marty Krofft Pictures, where he directed, wrote, and produced the YouTube docuseries Mondays with Marty Krofft (2021-2023). Before that, as manager of the Walt Disney Archives, Klein built the studio’s costume collection from fifteen pieces to more than three thousand, rescuing wardrobe that had gone unidentified and nearly lost when Disney closed its original costume department in 2007. Klein wrote and curated the Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives exhibitions in 2009 and 2011 and executive produced Disney’s D23: Armchair Archivist, and directed the 2010 documentary Disney People and Places: Archiving the Archives, which premiered in the Disney Studio’s own theater.

His authority extends past the Disney lot. Klein wrote Back to the Future Almanac: 1985-2015, the official Universal/Amblin coffee table book, and curated Back to the Future Trilogy: The Exhibit at the Hollywood Museum, on public display for two years. As a recurring on-camera expert for the Walt Disney Company and NBCUniversal, Klein is a familiar face to collectors from Pawn Stars and Collector’s Call. He owns and curates one of the largest private collections of original entertainment props, costumes and picture vehicles in the world.