EMvTW 126: USS Princeton NCC-59804 (Niagara class)

NOTE:  You can click on most pictures to get a larger view of them.

The U.S. Eaglemoss webstore was a bit of a P.I.T.A. over the last two months.  While I admit that I have been extremely busy since my last review (of Alice) back at the end of June, what with being let go from a 19 year old job, moving to a new temporary apartment (for the next year), and setting my son up in a new school district because he all of a sudden decided to come live with me full time... <HEAVY SIGH> ...I still would have gotten some new stuff written, had it actually been available.

While this next model was available on time last month, it's partner model, the Eymorg Starship was MIA until sometime early last week.  What finally did me in was when the webstore released the next two issues, for August, as well as the Voyager Concept, but STILL did not have he Eymorg ship.  I am not a patient man, and eventually bit he bullet and bought that missing model on eBay for an extra $10, as well as caught up with the other ships through the Eaglemoss' site.  Surprise, surprise, no magazines came with the Voyager model, and much to my dismay, no magazines with this month's models (Tholian Webspinner (23rd Century) and OV-165)?  But wait!  There;'s more!  Apparently, as of early this week, you can now also get next month's models too.  I ordered them and will be very annoyed if they are missing magazines as well.

I go on that little side-track to simply say that this month will be a treat as it appears that I will be bringing you a total of SEVEN reviews, practically back-to-back.

Anyway... enough of my ranting... let us take a look a the first of this next batch of reviews, the USS Princeton (NCC-59804), a Niagara class starship.

We are first introduced to this type of starship via a partial glimpse in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II".


Per Memory Alpha and Beta, "The Niagara-class was a type of Starfleet vessel in service in the late 24th century. This class of starship had the unusual distinction of having three warp nacelles."

If you would like to read more official stuff on this type of ship, feel free to check out the following links:

Niagara Class Information: Memory Alpha LINK and Memory Beta LINK
USS Princeton (NCC-59804) Information: Memory Alpha LINK and Memory Beta LINK

As I stated earlier, we only get to see a part of this ship because by the time it appears on screen, it had been destroyed by the Borg a the Battle of Wolf 359.

Photo Credit: Memory Beta

This model is one of those examples of what makes the Eaglemoss collection so great.  First, no other manufacturer has produced a pre-built and pre-painted model of this size.  Second, Eaglemoss has painstakingly re-created the ship in it's pre-battle-damaged state so that we can fully appreciate how weird the ship looked.  😀

Eaglemoss

 

 

 

 

Let us get my first gripe out of the way, and this has nothing to do with the actual physical model.  The stand for this model is absolute crap.

It does a horrible job of supporting the model and my ship kept sliding off and doing a nose dive.  Sadly, if you don't want your model to become damaged, you will need to just set it in your display case next to the stand.

With that out of the way, we now turn our attention to the Eaglemoss rendition of this ship.

There are a lot of nicely done physical details that were sculpted and molded into the model.  And none of hem seem to suffer from the Eaglemoss Melted Marshmallow Syndrome (definition for this at the end of the article), so that all of those details are nice and crisp and clear.

The model sports some nice panel lines, windows, escape hatches and those ever important phaser strips.

The paint work is just as well done for the model.  The entire thing is enhanced by a light aztecing pattern.

My one observation about the model is that the bottom of saucer seems rather blank, however, when you look at the magazine and actual pictures of the ship, this area does indeed look barren like that.  It is a little disconcerting, but it is screen accurate.

Eaglemoss sometimes has an issue with these larger capitol ships where they have a hard time lining up the window paint with the molded windows.  While this model does suffer from that issue as well, it is only on a few windows this time and even on them, the alignment is only slightly off.  It's a vast improvement and totally forgivable on a $25 model.  Honestly, I didn't notice until one of my fellow reviewers had pointed it out, and even then, I had to look really hard to spot this so it looks like Eaglemoss has gotten better on that aspect.

I love the fact that this ship actually included the impulse engine, especially since the Eaglemoss Ambassador Class model was missing it.  I'm even more happy that they went with red to make it look like they engine is live and running

The nacelles are beautifully done with the clear red and blue plastics.  The mold and paint work are well paired and do a fantastic job of  highlighting this important area of the ship.  The paint work is especially pleasing with all the pennants and other small dabs, which do nothing but add even more pizazz to these three nacelles.

Whenever I review a Starfleet ship, I like to hyper-focus on the deflector dish as it usually gives me a good idea of the level of attention to details that a manufacturer puts into thier models.  Let's face it, this is a very important part of the ship and should be accurately represented.

I usually like to see the deflector dish on Eaglemoss ships to be done in clear plastic.  The dish on the Princeton is painted on this time, however, the paint work is so precise, it is hard to tell in my pictures.  I had to go and dig it out of the box again when it came time to write this article, and take another close look just to be sure.  That being said, the dish was well executed, with nice mold lines and well applied pant.

The joins and seams were blended well with the natural lines of the ship so that they are harder to spot.  The only real noticeable spot for them was on the unpainted shuttle bay.  I hate when manufacturers just leave this part of the ship the same color as the hull.  Supposedly, this ship sports two shuttle bays.  The one on the saucer can't be seen because f this lack of actually painting it.

And that is all I really have to share at this point on this class of ship.  As for pricing, I will continue with the tradition of rounding up the most inexpensive Buy-It-Now prices from eBay at the time of this article's writing (August 2018).

Eaglemoss = $32

NOTE: Prices were researched last on August 24th, 2018.  As of the writing of this article, you can also currently order the Eaglemoss model right from the company themselves for around $23 (shipping unknown).

This is a very well done model from Eaglemoss.  They executed this one almost flawlessly, and given the nature of the source material (being blown up and all), they did a fantastic job of bringing the model back to life for us.  When I actually buy stuff on eBay, I feel comfortable paying anywhere from $25 to $30 a model for these standard edition ships.  I would dare say that, given the quality of the workmanship, I would be comfortable actually paying up to $40 if I had to to acquire another one, if the need arose.  Thankfully, at the time of this writing the model is available right from Eaglemoss, so you don't need to do that.  So what I'm saying is, you rally should add this one to your flee.

And if you have any of the other Battle of Wolf 359 fleet ships, it most definitely will e a cool addition to that part of your collection.

Ghosts Of Wolf 359 [Updated]

As always, I hope you found this article useful and informative.  If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to comment below.

So for now, "Live long and prosper!!!"



Definitions
EMMS = Eaglemoss Melted Marshmallow Syndrome.  This is best described as a softening of details where they appear more rounded, less edgy and a bit out of focus.  Sort of what happens to a marshmallow as you heat it up to it's melting point on a camp fire.

Additional Links To Photos Of My Collection:

Eaglemoss   

Other Reviewers Take On The Eaglemoss Model:
Some Kind Of Star Trek
Star Trek Starship Collection