Origin: parable of Jesus where salvation is compared to a pearl of great price that a man would sell all for in order to own. 

Not a bad idea to borrow it: massive pearl with suitable backstory and a "great price" that should equate to priceless.

They did this in Firefly: a collector/bad guy had the lascitor (spelling?) The first working laser hand held prototype.

Value: 1-2.2 million Cr.

There are actually 3 copies. The first draft written in drallish final draft in drallish final draft in vrusk. The final draft in both languages are considered original and kept in the Terledrom analog for the library of Congress. The first draft in drallish has changed hands a number of times and is considered an important historical document. 

It's not that old so I'm not valuing it in the millions

Last sold for 180,000 Cr. 

Trans Travel's first production vessel, a TT-5150 freighter (HS:5) serial number #1, has changed hands several times during its considerably shorter tenure compared to the PGC exploraion ship (what with TT being a post-UPF megacorp)...most recently at just over 10M credits. Trans Travel, not believing it would fetch as much as it did, lost the last auction but is quite eager to recover their first historical craft. As such they discontinued the model (and resulting supply of original parts) in hopes that the lacking support would force the price back down. Sadly this backfired, prior owners used the ship but the current owner has it on display at an orbital museum so it will remain preserved for quite some time, thus only increasing in value until TT is forced to relaunch the model again, much to the chagrin of numerous other TT-5150 owners & operators in the Frontier.

We should invent a beloved starship manufacturer that did not survive the competition put up by TT and PGC. Something like Indian motorcycles

PGC eventually secured control of Laco and will do it's dead  level best to prevent anyone other than then from obtaining interesting artifacts.  But prior to the out come of Laco's War I'm sure some interesting artifacts did make it off world. 

How about a broken device that looks like some sort of archway or gate device. Found by one of the first explorers on Laco, kept in his collection till his death and sold by his daughter. It's changed hands a few time and the last time it was auctioned under a sealed bid current own unknown. PGC wold love to get it's hands on it. 

Estimate worth 50,000,000 credits

Noteworthy artifacts on display at the Volturnian Museum of Organized Crime & Other Historic Menaces:

> A quartet of laser pistols belonging to Geiger, Gramic, Konchinho, & Manetoe...the notorious group of sathar agents who breached PGC security in numerous systems and were ultimately neutralized at Port Loren. Estimated value of the lot is 5-10K credits.

> The Malthar's hover chair recovered from Darkworld Station after the Third Dramune Civil War, valued at 15K credits.

> The Succubus, a prototype pirate corvette believed to have transported the Star Devil himself to and from Volturnus prior to the Sathar Invasion. Badly damaged from battle, if repaired & restored it could fetch close to 1M credits but it is currently worth little more than salvage value plus another 10-20K Cr for nostalgia. However it should be noted that Shat-Rat's Salvage orbitting Evergleem is eager to acquire this historic craft so a bid war can be expected.

> The gutted remains of "Puppetmaster", the notorious cybernetic hijacker that took control of the PGCS Prenglar Doll. It is merely a restored & polished exterior of the bodywork, all of the robotic software and biological hardware have been destroyed by Star Law. Estimated value at auction is 25K credits.

> A recreation of the Star Devil's quarters from Slave City One - all of the furnishings were recovered following the Sathar Invasion and while initially valued at roughly 5,000 credits the recent addition of several other items such as a silver plated gyrojet pistol & suede holster both etched with his logo, a jewel encrusted saber, & a formal military dress uniform brings the estimated value up to 50K credits.

> The Sathar War Tank recovered from Starmist and a Scout Ship recovered from Mahg Mar & Liberty systems is on permanent display, both are fully functional but Star law forbids releasing these to the civilian market. Also on display are a non-functional Scorpion fighter recovered from the infamous Day of the Juggernaut and the Zuraqqor Rogue Robot used to infiltrate the PGCS Omicron. Much like the Puppetmaster, both items have been gutted and are merely exterior shells restored for display purposes. Star Law is considering releasing these for public auction and as such they are expected to fetch 100,000 & 35,000 credits respectively. A damaged automatic cannon from the Sathar Invasion at Volturnus is currently in conservation awaiting restoration, although Star Law forbids it to be functional. Once completed it could fetch upwards of 60,000 credits. Awaiting release from quarantine are a cybodragon headpiece complete with heavy lasers, a fully functional ground transport used to ferry parabatteries to the cybodragons, a complete set of slavebot exo-gear used on Eorna corpses at the Sathar Artifact, and the remnants of a force field generator...all items are currently being studied & observed by UPF and Star Law and are expected to be stripped/non-functional if they are to be released for auction. No values have been set as such.

 

All items have been certified genuine by the chief curator of the Volturnus Museum Society having passed extensive historic testing for authenticity.

Is it? I honestly don't recall, it's been ages since I ran the module let alone even sourced it. I recall the module was designed so that players could utilize it, and I just did a quick browse to see what the penalties were and there was no mention of -20% for alien technology (which technically should apply to Klikk or Sathar alike)...rather just logic scores to figure it out.

I just assumed it was of Sathar design as it looks Sathar-ish.

It also looks very Phantom Menace/Trade Federation-ish too...

Vital Statistics:

Weight: 135.24Kg, 676,200 carats

Value: Priceless

A diamond this size in 1980 dollars would cost $7.1 billion.   I don't know if diamonds are as rare or valuable in a multiple star system economy like Star Frontiers. 

The other possibility is a private collector that has made it known in the underworld that he/she is interested in the unique item, in which case any willing fence would have to make a profit between buying it from the thief and selling it to the collector...in which case it becomes more profitable to cut it/sell it off via its individual pieces.

By pf:100 electric vehicles were the norm across the Frontier and the internal combustion engine was restricted to off road use or in some cases parade duty on public roads at best. Pan Galactixon was last to produce an electric powerplant, and their first foray in that field was their XLCR880 hovercycle. PGC researched the popular modifications that were being performed on their former internal combustion ground cycles to offer some nostalgia in their (at the time) modern hover pacakge. Exposed hoverfans front and rear emulated the popular abbreviated fenders that were popular on those IC bikes, with thick rear fans in the back and a narrow large diameter fan leading the way. The control vanes for the front fan were even "raked out" to emulate those parallel mods of yesteryear, controlled by a shoulder height handlebar. Beyond those radical features the XLCR880 was, much like the XV1000, a very bare bones vehicle boasting a single headlight with a single gauge perched above it just fore of the handlebar mounts. A single seat behind a faux tank fed that styling even further. What makes the XLCR "desireable" is the air cooled electric powerplant, a fan shroud on each side of the motor with ventilated covers and "sound routing" tubes running aft of the motor emulated a set of exhaust pipes, this combination produced a loud wailing noise that would be comparable to that of a jet turbine. The 880 would top out at 120kph with a 90kph cruising speed (which allowed for a max range of 880km), an impressive cornering speed of 100m/turn and equally impressive 120m/turn acceleration & 60m/turn braking. While there are modern liquid cooled/quiet reproductions of the XLCR880 available today, these original models easily fetch 100,000Cr at auction and serial number 0001 sits in a museum with an estimated half-million credit value.

The age of liquid cooled electric motors (starting around pf:20) gave a big boost to Streel's quartet of ground & hovercycle subsidiaries, mostly due to Pan Galactixon's insistance at remaining loyal to their "old guard" customer base who preferred loud vehicles...hence PGC was reluctantly late to the party and took some time to perfect a liquid cooled electric motor. As such Streel's massed produced vehicles dominated both sales and performance during this time frame, with early renditions of ground & hover cycles netting 50-100K at auction. The sole exception would be Streel's Hyondow XB750 Crossbow, the hovercycle that set Streel's pattern in motion for decades to come. Early models can still be found in decent condition today and fetch 50-150K at auction, with the first year models netting as much as 200K. It is rumored that CEO Hilo Headow keeps serial number 000001 at his private residence and occassionally takes it out for a few laps on his private closed course.

Assuming their civilization was advanced enough, yes. But they still live in log huts suspended over water, so it's safe to say they've yet discovered FTL travel. The restored tank (operational or display shell status TBA) should be safe for some time...alas the value would take a hit with these background developments.

The fleet command took the helmet and the video of the impromptu autopsy while his body fell towards Timeon and put it on tour in the Cassidine and Prenglar systems.  The tour initially drew large crouds and served to solidify the truth that Hatzck Naar was dead.  When the exhibit attendance dropped the helmet was returned to Timeonand placed in locked storage on Lossend.  Many years later the helmet was inadvertently sold in a military surplus auction.   After the helmet's rediscovery some years later it began changing hands among private collectors.

Estimated Auction Value: 15,000 Cr.

Something I would use as a McGuffin/Maltese Falcon etc.

Of value but not so much it unbalances the game. Still it's a historic artifact.

Speaking of historical artifacts anyone else see this:

EDIT: so my first reaction to this is cool story and some film historian will either idntify the sword as being X prop that was used in Y movie 40-50 years ago. And some collector will pay a price for it equal to a semester or two of college tuition.  Or since the father just told his daughter about the story of King Aurthur that he had snuck it in the pool at night and waited till the went swimming. If that's the case he gets cool Dad of the year for that because his daughter will never forget this experience. 

Decades latter a grad student at the Triad Institute of Technology wrote a paper about the Minotaur Militia ships tech and how the escape pods did not have the standard floatation protocols but that the user had about 10 minutes to egress the pod and deploy an inflatable raft before the pod sunk. Thus raising the possibility that the remains of the Excalibur's captain could be at the bottom of the lake. 

Officially she went down with her ship.

Some theorist speculate that she got out of her escape pod and swam to shore and decided to marry a settler and lived out her life quietly on Morgaine's World. 

Some speculate that her remains are at the bottom of the lake. 

There is however one escape pod there for sure: a Star Play Production holovid of the battle filmed an escape pod splashing down in the lake and sinking. The prop was never recovered. 

Upon his death his telescope passed to his social school and was displayed there for approximately 200 years till it was donated to a [insert Dralasite name of museum] where it has remained. Valued @ millions (one estimate is 10 million) but it has never sold. 

There are other contenders for the title Brassalolo's telescope because as he learned more and built bigger and better telescopes he gave away his older one to students and apprentices. One is of questionable provenance but 3 others are not. The Segarth telescope (named for the aid and apprentice Segarth is a possibly the very telescope he used to make his ground breaking discoveries and invalidate the Faugarth Fallacy it last sold at auction for 12 million. 

Actually that would be two hovercycles and a ground cycle (the PGC XV1000 was an internal combustion powered conventional motorcycle). The "third" hovercycle would be the early model XB750 Crossbows fetching high prices at auction, unless of course you are strictly referring to the rumor of Hilo Headow owning the first model off that line.

P.S. the cybernetic control center is actually a cybot...the Puppetmaster who commandeered the Preglar Doll from the Warriors of White Light module.

P.S.S. don't forget the gutted Scorpion fighter from the Juggernaut as a fourth ship.

Aw, shucks...let's make it five. I meant to respond to this and got sidetracked the first time around. Better late than never as they say. ;)

Shaman Spacecraft, a subsidiary of Streel prior to the first Sathar War, belted out one of the most elegant planetary/system defense starships ever. Utilizing a class 4 hull that was loosely referred to as a Corvette/Escort boasting a semi-aerodynamic hull, atmospheric capable versions with airfoils were also manufactured. A trio of atomic drives occupied equally elegant nacelles perched on aerodynamic struts occupies the stern while a symetrically flowing set of lines move forward to the helm. The ships were typically armed with a precursor to the pod laseer system, which is to say the guns from a standard laser battery were fixed in a forward firing array...while an actual laser battery system was perched on the dorsal position with equally attractive shrouds enveloping it.

Many of the original Shaman C/E vessels were pressed into service by the First and Second Common Musters alike, however they were never contracted as a mainline vessel...that role was given to the larger frigate class vessels of that era instead (and still holds true today). Still, the ships proved to be quite effective in both combat theaters and the basic design inspired the Assault Scout five decades later.

Shaman went bankrupt following the First Sathar War and subsequent formation of the UPF, they simply could not compete with the more modern designs that were being introduced afterwards. Pan Galactic, Cassidine Development Corporation, WarTech, and Galactic Task Force all made brief attempts at nostalgic ressurections of the Shaman design, but each redux fell through in short order due to dismal sales.

Streel CEO Hilo Headow owns Shaman C/E serial number 5, the earliest known example of the original line, but it is badly damaged as a result of a pre-UPF firefight. He owns three others, two of them orginal but also in poor condition (being used as parts to salvage/revive the first one) and a fully functional model that was retrofitted with modern parts (the only value to collectors being its original hull...which may ultimately be cannibalized for Number Five if need be). With operational restored/original versions breaking seven figures at auction, once finished Hilo's #5 could easily double the going rate.

It should be noted that fully restored and/or original operational models number fewer than ten in the Frontier today, with an estimated 30 more surviving/non-operational examples as well. While the fully atmospheric craft are equally valuable (due to lower production numbers), the standard models are more sought after as the airfoils ruined the flowing lines. The good news is an increasing number of atmospheric capable "barn find" models that have been surfacing lately, these craft are being discovered in the most unlikely places in various conditions ranging from wrecked to readily restorable. It should be noted that the retro-clones from later reiterations are sought after for little more than name-nostalgia, they tend to not fetch much more than when sold new.

The only image I have is my hand-drawn XLCR880 (first PGC electric motor on a hovercycle revisiting the internal combustion XV1000 era ground cycles). I could probably whip up a Shaman Corvette/Escort as I based that ideal on a "prettied-up" Traveller Close Escort deck plan I rendered way back when.

Anyways, the aforementioned hoverbike pic is not a large file so I'll just post it here: