The Denver Post published a nice piece by John Wenzel about Colin Cantwell last week, going over his contributions to Star Wars: A New Hope and other accomplishments. You can check it out on their official website: “He kept his Star Wars legacy a secret in Boulder for decades. At 85, the sci-fi pioneer is ready to step out.“ [Read more…]
The New York Daily News continues to take the lead in the mainstream media on the story about “disgraced sports memorabilia pioneer” Bill Mastro, Founder and CEO of Mastro Auctions, which shut down in 2009 during the FBI investigation. In the ongoing saga, he plead guilty to shill bidding and mail fraud and admitted to trimming/altering a high value trading card to increase it’s value. U.S. District Judge Ronald A. Guzman sentenced Mastro to 20 months in prison; NY Daily News reports the judge was “troubled by the fact that Mastro had destroyed bidding records after learning the FBI had launched an investigation into fraud…“. [Read more…]
So I was very busy last week with activities and events related to Colin Cantwell, who I helped to consign his memorabilia collection to Julien’s Auctions. I attended the VIP preview last Wednesday night, organized a meet and greet Friday, and was present to watch the auction unfold first thing Saturday morning. I thought I would share some thoughts about this experience, as well as some photos I took last week. And, as I expected, with the rare memorabilia becoming public (including the never before seen concept artwork and my interviews with Mr. Cantwell over the summer), so new information came as a result of work from other fans (all exclusively from Star Wars). Colin Cantwell famously made the first prototype models for George Lucas back in 1974/1975; the first realizations for the X-Wing Fighter, the Y-Wing Fighter, the Tie Fighter, the Star Destroyer, the Death Star, the Landspeeder, the Sandcrawler, and the Millennium Falcon, as well as the T-16 Skyhopper. [Read more…]
Colin Cantwell, who has an incredible career in science and the arts, will be doing an exclusive meet and greet at Julien’s Auctions on Friday, December 5th from 1:30 to 3:00. Colin Cantwell famously made the first prototype models for George Lucas back in 1974/1975; the first realizations for the X-Wing Fighter, the Y-Wing Fighter, the Tie Fighter, the Star Destroyer, the Death Star, the Landspeeder, the Sandcrawler, and the Millennium Falcon, as well as the T-16 Skyhopper. His original, never before seen concept artwork from 1974/1975 will be up for auction at Julien’s Auctions on Saturday, December 6th at 10 AM, as well as other artifacts from his work on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Omnimax/IMAX, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and WarGames, as well as the mission plans from his work with NASA and CBS on the Apollo XI moon landing mission in 1969. At 82 years old, this is Mr. Cantwell’s first meet and greet and autograph signing, so a very rare opportunity to meet a legend in classic science fiction film and television. [Read more…]
Colin Cantwell is a dreamer. However, he’s is one of those rare individuals who is not content to merely dream, but to imagine how to make dreams a reality, and takes action to make things happen. And if the tool or method that he requires does not exist, he will invent it. He is about thinking up possibilities that others would find… impossible. He is also quite modest, regardless of his incredible accomplishments across a broad spectrum of disciplines. He seems to be entirely self-motivated and has an internal engine driving him to achieve the results that bring his dreams to life. My other observation, through my conversations with him at his home in Colorado some months ago, is that he is not only brilliant, but he is unrestrained by the divisions and categorizations that frame the lives of most of the rest of us. Like the great Leonardo da Vinci, Colin Cantwell is gifted with a great diversity of talents, as a scientist, inventor, artist, special and computer effects wizard, architect, engineer, and I’m sure a number of other abilities. In my opinion, he is one of our great national treasures that “we” didn’t know about. He played a significant role in Star Wars: A New Hope, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Omnimax/IMAX, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and WarGames, working with some of our greatest film auteurs like George Lucas, Stanley Kubrick, and Steven Spielberg. He worked with NASA and CBS on the Apollo XI moon landing mission. He even won over “the greatest architect of all-time”, Frank Lloyd Wright. And at 82 years of age, he continues to work on his life achievements; with his concept of Cosmic Biodesics, only now is the rest of the world catching up to his ideas. [Read more…]
The New York Daily News lead mainstream media reports yesterday about “disgraced sports memorabilia kingpin” Bill Mastro of Masto Auctions plead guilty to mail fraud and admitted to trimming/altering a high value trading card to increase it’s value. Mastro will be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Ronald A. Guzman, and faces up to five years in prison. [Read more…]
As the latest significant update to this ongoing high profile memorabilia auction house fraud scandal, the lead journalists covering the story for the New York Daily News today reports that William Mastro of Mastro Auctions will be changing his plea to guilty on one fraud count, and will admit that he “altered the world’s most valuable trading card, a Honus Wagner T206 that has fetched millions of dollars in a series of high-profile transactions”. It’s last sale was to Ken Kendrick, the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who paid $2.8 million for the baseball card. Mastro originally purchased the card for $25,000. [Read more…]
The Chicago Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have published a press release update regarding the ongoing investigation of alleged sports memorabilia fraud involving former Mastro Auction executives. Prosecutors claim that William Boehn, the Information Technology Director, made false statements to FBI agents. According to the FBI press release, the memorabilia auction house executives “were indicted on fraud charges for allegedly rigging auctions through a series of deceptive practices, including so-called “shill-bidding,” designed to inflate prices paid by bidders and to protect the interests of consignors and sellers at the expense of unwitting bidders.” [Read more…]