[Morgan]

This is one of my favorites from the debut lineup, and this one happens to be on a European tri-lingual card, which means that the clip-and-collect part of the card is a sticker that's glued on over whatever's underneath. That also means that like the Canadian card there's a sticker on the front of the blister identifying the figure, in addition to the Bandai logo.

The Ferengi is one of the more caricaturish debut release figures, but I've always liked this figure's rarity despite the huge production numbers of the debut line. By the mid-90s these were all pickled away, and usually retailed for $20 to $30.

The debut line did not have a "chase" figure per se, but a small number of Ferengi figures were made without the black highlights on the bootstraps. So along with the mirror image Borg, the no-black-on-boots Ferengi was the "chase" figure.

The accessories with this figure are nothing short of epic. The whip, which I don't think made an appearance past the first first episode that featured the Ferengi -- "The Last Outpost" -- is not particularly scary, while the phaser rifle is about the same size as a the Ferengi's torso. The blaster is also gigantic, and is not something that can reasonably be carried on the Ferengi's person even if the figure had a holster. The unique base is nice, as is the dilithium chrystal.

I also like this figure because of the history of the whole Ferengi concept in TNG: originally meant to be the villains of the series, they had advanced ships that it was difficult to believe they could be bothered to build, and that the episode itself was shot before the special effects were done (not all that unusual by itself), which led Picard to remark "An impressive design" as the Enterprise was chasing the Ferengi ship. The Ferengi costumes weren't scary, their whips weren't scary, and in the episode they came off as more of a nuisance than a threat. I've wondered at times if there were other episodes in the pipeline where the Ferengi were slated to wreak more havoc... If there were, they were shelved after "The Last Outpost." I also like how Riker and Picard were visibly affected by their reputation in this episode, at least at first. This is a character from that innocent era of TNG.