posted 07-10-2011 09:39 PM               

Surprising to me are the prices on the NASA meatball patch.

posted 07-11-2011 04:37 AM               

Yesterday's Goldberg Auction had quite a few with the best price being $1253 for seven patches - disregarding the flown items - an average of $179 which doesn't look so bad.

I was really lucky to pick up four fine examples for $25 - yes $6.25 each! - from an eBay seller who had no appreciation of what they were worth.

posted 07-11-2011 06:43 AM              

Another mixed lot of 8 or 9 went for $725, under $100 each, again before fees.

A lot of seven different Apollo mission patches went for $900.

Flown, crew signed [all 5] ASTP betas from Deke's collection [with letter] went for $525, $550, and $525, estimates were $750-$1000.

posted 08-30-2011 03:43 PM              

Good cleanly-printed examples of the Apollo 8 beta cloth mission patch without creases and on a full 9" x 9" cloth sell for anywhere between $80 and $155, and even $206.10 and $234.50 for two recent examples.

posted 09-07-2011 05:20 PM               

Some are readily available, even from the astronauts themselves. Charlie Duke, Gene Cernan, Jim McDivitt, Jerry Carr, Bill Pogue, Paul Weitz and others have offered theirs for sale at autograph shows or through dealers for years. But others are pretty tough to find, particularly if you're not a big spender at these high-end auctions with significant buyer's premiums, (like me).

I would say the most sought after and perhaps most rare are Apollos 8, 11, and 10. And of course, flown ones are in a class by themselves. I know that until recently, thanks to Charlie16, I thought I would never find an 8 at a reasonable price.

Sometimes, you find a seller who is going in another direction with their collection and looking to raise funds. Other times, it's just timing. I won an Apollo 15 and a NASA meatball on eBay in one night...a 2 AM closing time on the same day as a major east coast snowstorm. My guess was most folks were exhausted after shoveling snow all day!

Now throughout the decade I have been collecting them, I only ended up with three duplicates, typically because they came as part of a set, and these were turned around to fund other patches.

Today, it seems to be a seller's market. There is more awareness about betas in the collecting community, and with the high prices realized at auction houses, one offered online can quickly spiral up in cost with bidders feeling they are still getting a good deal.

posted 09-08-2011 08:44 PM              

Some of the best bargains I've gotten have actually been some recent auctions.

There are one or two Owens Corning Apollo 11 betas on ebay at the moment. I believe they were part of a Ownens-Corning 'Apollo Emblems' package that included an American flag, the mission patch, and a picture of a LM on surface and 'Man on the Moon' above and 'July 20 1969' below, with an Owens-Corning ad about Apollo on one side and Fibreglass insulation on the other. Interesting package.

The mission patch is interesting in that the words 'Apollo 11' is not on the patch and the black space backgraound is a deep blue.

This was the first patch I ever bought, and when I handed it to Buzz to get signed, he was surpirsed, had not seen it, and asked where the 'Apollo 11' was. I didn't know the nature of the patch at the time.

A hint on eBay searches, so what if I'm shooting myself in the foot: some list beta cloths and use terms other than 'beta cloth' or 'beta fabric' or 'beta patch' or even 'beta', they may not know what it is, so scour the eBay listings, I recently found the Owens-Corning set as mentioned above on eBay, paid under $100 for the set.

Always looking to trade with others!

posted 09-09-2011 01:45 AM               

The same can be said for the US flag patch (which is part of that pack). Prices for these have remained fairly stable at around $35-70.

Because the other two patches in the set are not actual mission patches (the Apollo 11 lacks the mission id as mentioned above and I've seen them sell individually for only $30-50) they don't have anywhere near the same appeal to collectors as the real thing.