Fametek

[00:00:02] The Trek Geeks and the Divine Treasure are proud to have fansets as our presenting sponsor. Stay tuned for a special discount code worth 10% off your order at fansets.com. Fansets, our pins have character. Divine Treasury has made a pure lack of...

[00:00:49] Wow, here we are back talking about collectibles again. And if you don't remember who we are, I am the vastly low-caliber collector, Mike Bolia, and I am joined by my esteemed colleague, the man who has built the Enterprise D, Jamie Rogers.

[00:01:08] And Jamie, is it complete now or is there one more pack? We're very, very close. The last pack got shipped out this week. I should be getting it shortly. It'll be a little piece where it's a second battery pack and then it will be some decals,

[00:01:25] so fun times. And then I got to figure out what I'm going to do for our base. But almost there, five years in the making for this Enterprise D. Five-year mission. Yeah. There you go.

[00:01:36] Let's see, that is so different from when I was a kid and I would build a model because when you did that, you could string it from your ceiling with fish line. I don't think that's going to work with this one.

[00:01:48] Now, a little too much weight on the saucer section and all those electrical packets. Well, anyway, our guest tonight is someone that we met way back at Mission Chicago back in 2022 while we were eating dinner.

[00:02:02] And during that conversation, we promised that we would have him on our show and damn it, we keep our promises even if they're two years overdue. So we welcome tonight, Jeremy Larson. He is a director from Faintek Collectibles. So Jeremy, how you doing?

[00:02:19] It's good to catch up with you. Oh, I'm good, Mike. I'm good. It's nice to get this going. It's definitely been a long time coming. And yeah, I was excited for it for the last two years. So here we go.

[00:02:30] I must say, Jeremy, I love your t-shirt, your Chateau Picard t-shirt. I think I might have gotten that at the show, to be honest. Yeah. Oh, it's very possible. There was a lot of stuff like that going around there.

[00:02:46] So, Jeremy, I wanted to ask you kind of what is just for our listeners, what is Faintek specializing? Well, first off, it starts for famous collectibles. So it's a kind of pop culture, but more sci-fi. It's just a creation of all the different sci-fi dreams that we had

[00:03:12] when we were kids and trying to make things a reality. And I've done a lot of things before with other companies and electronics and just decided, why not? Why not do it for Trek and other things that I really love? So that's kind of where it got started.

[00:03:27] And it's just launched from there. And here we are. You mentioned some other products beside Trek. What else are you guys dabbling in at the moment? Well, Dr. Hu was our first license. And it's kind of a funny story how we even got into doing licensing.

[00:03:48] Our parent company is Massive Audio. We're an audio company. We make high-end speakers and amplifiers for cars and home and all that stuff. And every year at CES, you have to have a display car. So we always had a car, a Hummer, you know, trike, all these things.

[00:04:06] And I decided one year to convince everybody to make a six-foot remote-controlled dialect with all of our speakers and amps built on it. And so we brought that to the show. And I mean, it was an awesome sight to be called. And it went totally viral.

[00:04:20] The BBC ended up seeing it and they came to the booth and asked us if we wanted to make miniature versions of it. So that's how we got started making dialects and TARDIS speakers.

[00:04:30] And, you know, maybe a year or two later, we were at one of the licensing shows and ran into CBS at the time before it was by Com and then Paramount. But they liked what we were doing.

[00:04:42] We had the booth right next to them and they saw the dialect and they're like, hey, can you do that for us too? So that's how it got started. And just, you know, just kept going from there. Awesome. So how about yourself?

[00:04:55] Like what what moved you toward wanting to do something like this? Well, I mean, other than just kind of falling into it by luck, just just. Really enjoying creating products. You know, I've been a product manager for a really long time.

[00:05:12] I mean, it's always been things like accessories and speakers and just developing products and bring them to market, seeing them on the shelf and then being able to just do something that you really love is super rewarding.

[00:05:26] And all the detail that it takes to really make products like this that fans, you know, obviously get upset when they're not accurate and when they're not true to form. So, you know, just just having that challenge and being able to just keep,

[00:05:41] you know, pushing ourselves to make those kind of products that that fans like that that's what really drove me to do it. And that's what keeps me doing it. So yeah, I think I think just having that that product management background

[00:05:55] and into electronics and the sci-fi, it's just kind of all accumulated to this. All right. So what's Jeremy, if you could kind of tell me what's your what's your favorite product that you like to kind of produce?

[00:06:08] Would you say like, you know, kind of where your where your heart kind of lies? You know, I know for me, I like I have certain things that are really close to my heart that I like collecting.

[00:06:18] So what is what is really close to your heart when it comes to what you guys like producing? Oh, the ships for sure. The ships are my favorite. They're definitely the hardest. But that's that's what I want to do more of.

[00:06:32] I mean, I have a whole agenda of different ships. We want to do the Voyager. We want to do Discovery. I even want to do the Reliant that that's actually my favorite ship. So I think that hopefully next year we're really going to dive deep into that.

[00:06:50] And I think that that's for the most part what people really love. I mean, you know, we do and I wouldn't say gimmicky stuff, but like the power banks in the QI Chargers, those are those are really cool. I really love those products because they're unique

[00:07:02] and we can do so many different variations of them, but the ships just take a lot of work. So that's that's that's pretty much where where I think we're going to go more deep on in 2025.

[00:07:17] Jeremy, could you could you kind of describe to me what that process is like? So when you decide, OK, hey, I want to do the Reliant or I want to do the Enterprise or whatever it you know, like, what does that process look like?

[00:07:28] How long does it take? What type of research do you guys do like to get to that point? Well, well, luckily our designers that work with us are all just sci-fi geeks. You know, we're just really all into models and ships

[00:07:43] and and you know, really love the old Eagle Moss collections and you know, Master Replicas now. But you know, obviously we have quite a big collection. So you know, we we obviously have that detail to look at because they do such a great job.

[00:07:58] And then, of course, for like the sound effects that we put in there, that that's probably the more challenging aspect of it. You know, other than getting like the paint right and all the coloring right and you know, just like with the Enterprise D, you have that Aztec,

[00:08:13] you know, ingrained into the actual ship itself, like little details like that that you know, you want to say, oh, how can I do it a little bit better? How can I make it more accurate? But the sound effects, that's that's the fun part because,

[00:08:25] you know, being able to work with companies like the BBC and Paramount and getting their archives and and getting like the clean, ripped files and they give you like a hundred different sound effects and you only can choose six to nine at the most.

[00:08:39] That's the hardest and funnest process in my mind. It's so funny that you talk about that Aztec pattern with the Enterprise D because obviously I was a huge Eagle Moss guy. So I had, you know, the small version, I had the XL version.

[00:08:52] I had, you know, I basically collected all the enterprises and I'm obviously building the Enterprise D and I swear all three of them are different patterns. Like oh, yeah, the color variations completely like ones like almost like a blue.

[00:09:06] The other one's kind of almost like a tin like it's it's it's crazy how far different those models are. Yeah. And you know, sometimes you think you're your spot on and we're like, oh, this is this is it. This is it.

[00:09:19] And then you submit it and they're like, oh, no, that's it. That's a darker shade. Okay, I guess I'm wrong. But, you know, it's it's hard to capture especially on on TNG and TOS. The you know, the details just not there like it is on the shows now

[00:09:37] you can pause it on your screen and oh, you get everything, you know, take a screenshot of it and boom, you got it. But, you know, things were grainy back then. It's kind of harder to see. So you have to rely on different people's interpretations

[00:09:49] of what that was in models and pictures and art. And and then hopefully you get it right and, you know, approvals agrees with you and they're not always right either. Sometimes, you know, they say something and you're like, no, I know it's right. I know I'm right.

[00:10:02] And then you go back and forth for a while and either they give in or you just have things, you know, reality. So yeah, we've heard from some other licensees that have said the same thing that the approval process isn't always the most fun thing to deal with.

[00:10:16] So it's not but I got I got to tell you what track their team is is great and you know, any shout outs to Marion and Brian, you know, on that team because they are true, you know, track fans and you know, they get it.

[00:10:31] They get it and they want it to be right. And sometimes, you know, they have things we want. They want us to do. They're like, hey, can you just, you know, just bore you in it? And I don't know. And I'm like, come on. Okay, let's do it.

[00:10:44] You know, so like little things like that we go back and forth with and they're a really awesome resource. But yeah, it's you know, it's like I said, people's interpretation of it too. So it's it's a, you know, you kind of got to take all of those

[00:10:58] different things and make what you think is the most accurate and you're not going to please everybody. You know, there's always going to be someone that's like, oh, that's missing or that's wrong. And, you know, but for the most part, I think everybody

[00:11:09] ends up being happy with it. And that's the final goal is just to make everybody happy and enjoy it. So did you deal with any manufacturing shortages post COVID like everybody else? You know, we were pretty lucky. I honestly, we were pretty lucky.

[00:11:29] We had a small hiccup on Bluetooth ICs for a little bit, but by the time we needed production, we had them ready to go and it was fine. So it's just, I guess, our timing on what we were doing

[00:11:40] in the projects that we did at the time, it ended up working out. So it was good. I think if anything like logistically, we had some delays, but you know, for the most part where we started our parts from they were great. So how about yourself?

[00:11:58] Are you a collector of stuff? I am. I'm not as big as some of my friends. I have friends that I think one of my friends Bill, you met Bill at Chicago. He has, I think, every Eagle and Moss replica structure. I think he's got everything.

[00:12:18] So and he's got every Star Wars. I mean, God, you should see he's gotten rooms dedicated to do it. So there's no way I'll ever be come up come close to match that. So like, I kind of just be like, okay, I am who I am.

[00:12:31] And if you see my shelves, they're completely stacked of the products that we've made. So I don't even have room anyway to keep adding my collection, but I try. I try my best. That's like me and Jamie.

[00:12:43] He's far exceeded me a long time ago and I'm not even I'm not even trying to keep up. Yeah, I threw in a towel a little while ago trying to keep up. So yeah, the problem is when you when you get into that

[00:12:56] completest mold where you have to complete things, you know, like I'm sure you're must complete. Yeah, that's that's the that's the real danger. You know, I'm kind of like that with the cards and stuff like that. Like I have literally every every written house next gen

[00:13:13] autograph written house. That's who it was talking about beforehand. Yeah. No, I literally every every TNG autograph every movie, you know, movie style like I'm just crazy with that stuff. But I was doing Eagle Moss for a while and it just it

[00:13:28] it you know, it got challenging once once they started skipping issues when they were getting ready to go out into business and stuff like that that you know, it just got challenging to complete that collection obviously and then But it is what it is.

[00:13:44] I'm interested to see what the Doctor Who Star Trek collaboration is. I don't know if you know much about it or if you if you're signed up for the Master Rep. But a newsletter but I got something the other day and

[00:13:56] it said, you know, something's coming in the works. Yeah, I thought it was a long line of comic books. But I don't know. I think it sounded like they were doing something so really yeah, like they were going to create something.

[00:14:11] So I don't know there might be something there. There might be something we might end up doing in the future. You know, we that'd be that for me that I'd be icing on the cake if I can do both. Interesting. You heard it here first folks.

[00:14:27] Or maybe you or maybe you didn't because you know, I've got the news line right. I mean, we're kind of behind. I'm just telling you what I read. That's all I'm saying. All right. We'd like to take a moment to talk about fan sets the

[00:14:59] presenting sponsor of the Trek Geeks and the Divine Treasury. Since we last talked about things we collect, fan sets has rolled out the XL ships collection in Parley the successful women of Trek collection into the universe of Trek. All of that also goes with their Delta's collection

[00:15:19] which has been wildly popular. Fansets puts new releases out on the first and the 15th of every month unless of course they're attending a convention in person. So right now we're up against some new releases and I bet you're wondering what they're going to be while

[00:15:34] you're going to have to log into fansets.com to find out and as a listener to the show, you can receive 10% off your next order from fansets by using the code TREKGEKS at checkout. Now remember that you receive free shipping in the US on orders $30 or more.

[00:15:54] Fansets, our pins have character. So Jeremy, do you have anything new on the horizon that you'd like to promote? Ooby, yes. Of course we are very excited about the new section 31 Bluetooth Convash that's in production right now and will be here.

[00:16:39] I'm hoping within 60 days we'll have it available for sale on our website. We might do a exclusive with Star Trek.com. We're talking about that right now. That's kind of brand new as of today. So you're going to have to I guess sign up for the

[00:16:55] newsletter and find out where you can get it first. But that that unit is going to be pretty cool. If anyone's familiar with our TNG Bluetooth Convash, it's going to be a pretty cool upgrade. It's a little bit bigger.

[00:17:07] So we were able to add a bigger speaker, bigger battery, its touch capacity, its USB type-C. So it's fast charging. It's just an upgraded unit from the TNG version that we came out with a few years ago. So we're super excited about that.

[00:17:24] I think it's going to be right on time for the movie release, which I think is 2025 that's coming out. So we have that. We just launched our the TNG chirping Convash. So it's basically the exact same as the Bluetooth version except it's got a dual pin fastener instead

[00:17:43] of the magnetic and it's got a button cell batteries instead of replaceable batteries and it just chirps. So it doesn't connect to your phone, but it's a you know, it's it's priced for gift savvy people. I'll say so, you know, pick up some for your

[00:18:01] Trekkie loved ones and get it to him this holiday. But that and you know, we got a couple things going on for Dune. We came out with our Dune QI chargers and we're coming out with a sandworm pretty soon. So we're super excited about that.

[00:18:14] It's going to be in our what we call them our babbler collection. So they're basically Bluetooth speakers that talk. So they like our Mr. Spock. He has nine Leonard Nimoy quotes. This will have a different sandworm movements and thumbers and then we're coming out with a 10

[00:18:35] doctor David Tennant talking figure as well too. So we got a lot of those coming up and that's all going to be this year. Nice. I just want to ask one question too. I know you can't tell us if this is the key like what

[00:18:48] products will be coming out, but do you kind of get like a sneak peek sometimes as to what's what's on the horizon? Like if they're in production on a show or because of your relationship. Yes. So sometimes we do there are perks to the job.

[00:19:02] You know, whether it's being able to meet people or or get some sneak previews on what's going on. It's not as much as I would like. You know, sometimes I get totally blindsided with something and I'm like why couldn't you tell me

[00:19:14] that two months ago when we were designing this now we have to like, you know, stop on a dime and change things and but you know, we do get some of it. It's so cool. And I know Jamie and I have had the chance to

[00:19:30] experience some of the products, the chargers, the Enterprise D speaker. So, you know, I know you've teased to me the Borg speaker a few times, which I'm looking forward to. I thought I sent I thought I sent that to you that that's my bad.

[00:19:47] I'm gonna have to send that to you that the Borg Q the Borg Cube is is phenomenal. It's one of my favorites. I mean, obviously when you have something with a bunch of Borg quotes and it lights up green and you know, what else do you want?

[00:20:01] You know, it's it's in there's not in there's really not many Borg ships out there. There really isn't. I don't think Eagle Moss has done one. I don't. I don't think so. Not in large capacity. They had about that big tiny one.

[00:20:17] Yeah, this one this one's five inch by five inch square. Obviously the biggest complaint we get is that it's not in scale to the Enterprise D and I'm like good God come on. Well, you know, Star Trek fans. That's right.

[00:20:33] Do you really want it to be in scale? Yeah. That's funny. Well, the secondary plate on this board ship is not the right color. You know, there's definitely things I wish we could do in a lot of its cost conscious and a lot of

[00:20:50] it's you know, the customer relationships we have and price points, but the original D speaker that we did the whole concept of it was to make it a sleep machine with the engine noise and that's part of what that that product does.

[00:21:04] You know, you hit a button in 60 minutes of engine noise, you know, the lolly asleep that that was done and then it just kind of grew there. I really wanted to make the saucer section detachable and that would be the portable Bluetooth speaker.

[00:21:17] So you would detach it from the ship and then you can put in your pocket and you know, but you know, magnetically, but you know, we had to hit a certain price point on that and so those are the kind of things as like a mirror and you

[00:21:30] have to sacrifice on and you want to do everything you want. But we got in trouble when we first started when we were making the TARDIS and the Dalek speakers. We I mean, everybody just yelled at me because we over engineered them the hell. That was back in 2016.

[00:21:47] So you probably they're not in the market anymore but they were expensive but they were awesome. They were there a product a product designer's dream but that's when people are like, okay, it's gotta cost like $200 less, you know, then you're like, okay, okay.

[00:22:05] Well, I can confirm that I have had stressful work moments where I've reached over and hit that engine button to calm me down during the day. So it's definitely it definitely does work. That's for sure. It works. You know, we the mission was completed. So, hey, you know,

[00:22:23] Well, you've just heard about a lot of awesome products that Fame Tech puts out. So make sure you check out their website fame tech.com that's fame T E K dot com to see what they have in stock

[00:22:38] for your collection and as a special treat to all of our listeners out there, use the discount code divine like the shine off of Jamie's head divine at checkout to receive 15% off your order. Now that excludes bundles because Jeremy tells me that those are already discounted pretty good.

[00:22:59] So 15% off your order through the end of July. So Jeremy, we are so thankful that we've been able to get together with you tonight. Finally after all this time. So where can you be found on social media or fame tech themselves?

[00:23:21] But if you know, if it's for you, if people want to tell you how good you sounded compared to the two of us, then come groups. You know what? I won't lie. I patrol our social media pages.

[00:23:33] So if you know, if you post something on our on our on our Facebook page, I'm going to see it for sure and I'll probably be the one we're flying to you for the most part, but that's it. It's just fame tech dot com slash fame tech dot

[00:23:45] collectibles or just search fame tech collectibles and you'll find us. Same thing with Instagram. Those are pretty much the two main platforms. We do we do the tick tock. But you know, that's it's just kind of you know, putting out product videos and stuff like that.

[00:24:00] We're not we're not engaged as much as we are there as we are on on Facebook and Instagram. That's that's the kids game and none of us here are kids anymore. So I'm raising one. I got one coming up and me too. She's a big sci-fi fan already.

[00:24:19] And so we it's it's it's fun. Well, if you enjoy the Divine Treasury, you can subscribe to the podcast by searching for us on your favorite podcast app. You can also support the Divine Treasury and your other favorite shows on the Trek Geeks podcast network

[00:24:36] by supporting us on Patreon. Get access to unedited recordings of every episode on the network as well as other exclusive content and so many other awesome perks. I don't know about the awesome perks part because our latest patron email said that we were getting

[00:24:54] t-shirts that had Bill and Dan's face on it. So I don't know if that's a good perk, but that aside, if you would like to become a producer on the network or get access to the raw audio for this

[00:25:08] show, even though you haven't heard us for a while, head over to patreon.com slash Trek Geeks. No one talks Trek like we do. We'd also like to thank the band Five Year Mission for allowing us to use their awesome music on this show.

[00:25:24] Collectors listen up, they're writing a song for every episode of the original series and these are not parody songs, but their content that's based on the show itself. So go to fiveyearmission.net and put some of those CDs

[00:25:36] in your cart because we know in collecting it's not about the downloadable content. It's about that real physical media. So pick up year one, year two, year three and year four as well as The Trouble with Tribbles and Spock's Brain.

[00:25:48] Make Five Year Mission a part of your collection today. And I think I saw on Instagram, they've started working on year five as well. I could be wrong. Maybe I'm not paying attention well, but I thought I saw that online. You are correct, my friend. All right.

[00:26:07] So something to look forward to just like something to look forward to with the divine treasured week. On our next episode, we're going to take a look back on what's been going on with us to bozos in the collectibles world during our hiatus.

[00:26:22] Until then, this has been episode 26 of The Divine Treasury. The Divine Treasury connecting through collective. Music for The Divine Treasury is provided by Five Year Mission. They're writing an original song for each episode of Star Trek. Hear more of their music at FiveYearMission.net.

[00:26:47] The Divine Treasury is a production of Coconut Media Works, executive producers Bill Smith and Dan Davidson. For more great Star Trek discussion, discover the other shows of the Trek Geeks podcast network at TrekGeeks.com or find us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app.