posted 12-20-2012 09:38 PM
Living in Houston I met with Vinogradov after his flight and bought three flown patches from Expedition 13. One is the Expedition 13 patch, but it has a blue border. One is the TMA patch that has a silver border. Finally I have a patch that Pavel designed for his own use which is light blue in color and has a polar bear holding onto the Earth. On top is his name (in Russian) and some Russian on the bottom which I can get translated in a day or two. It has a yellow border.
They were in a brown wrapped package (like tennis balls in a can) that contained about 25 patches each and the wrapping paper was canceled with the ISS stamp. He removed them and wrote on the back "Flown EXP 13" and signed them in my presence. Another Houston collector also bought a set.
I went to Spacefacts.de and he does not have these flown ones on his Expedition 13 site. I will send him copies to update his pages. If you are interested, please contact me by e-mail at mercurypgm@aol.com. I will sell these only as a lot as they make a nice set.
Have many flown Russian items and will offer some on cS in the future. Many of the Russians are friends or perhaps they just like my money to go shopping at Walmart, but I like their Vodka! Houston, over and out — Richard