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  Appraising an inherited shuttle collection

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Author Topic:   Appraising an inherited shuttle collection
ohso
New Member

Posts: 5
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Jul 2013

posted 07-12-2013 11:29 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ohso     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I have a question about what I have recently come in to. I have inherited a collection from my late grandfather who worked for NASA until his death in 1988. Everything has been in boxes in my grandmother's house til she passed away earlier this year. I don't know much history about my grandfather as I was very young when he passed away.

I know he works on the shuttle trainers and was there out of Houston. Currently I am trying to figure out if I need to insure the collection or what to do with it. I have no clue as to its estimate value and wondering if someone could help figure out what I have. Is it something I can display or is it best suited to be in a safe? For myself and my family we feel it's a family heirloom.

  • The hats in the collection, from what I can tell is almost every shuttle mission from 1 to one after the Challenger accident. All manned Apollo, Mercury and Gemini is missing two hats for manned missions. JSC hats and Super Guppy. STS-1 5th year anniversary and Apollo landing. Skylab 1 series, and assortments.

  • Mission patches STT-1 to Challenger all.

  • Glasses — not shown, every mission STS-1 til Challenger

  • Two Snoopy pins award letters to him — one for hard work and dedication to his job. And one for actions during and incident that saved shuttle aircraft and other aircraft.

  • jacket given to him by astronauts after the incident and one flight jacket.

  • mission flown flag

  • Tons of what I can guess is official NASA photos of things having to do with NASA

  • 100 or so personal addressed photos from crew members, and staff giving thanks for his years of hard work and dedication.

  • Plus a collection of non-personal autographed astronaut photos.

  • Apollo 11 coin giving thanks for his support to the shuttle program.

  • Not pictured, one signed shuttle photo with from what I can guess is every one working at NASA on that day they passed it around.

  • Not pictured stickers that match the patches.

ohso
New Member

Posts: 5
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Jul 2013

posted 07-12-2013 11:29 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ohso     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

stsmithva
Member

Posts: 1933
From: Fairfax, VA, USA
Registered: Feb 2007

posted 07-13-2013 07:00 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for stsmithva   Click Here to Email stsmithva     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
You have a lot of very nice items there. I'll address just a few specific ones.

First, you mentioned the Snoopy pin award letters. Just to check, are the pins themselves present too? And what missions do the letters say they were flown on? This webpage contains an incredible amount of detail about those pins, and at the bottom there are many examples of past sale prices.

Presentations of flags flown on STS-2 sell for around $400. Here's one from a few months ago, for example.

As for the signed photos, I'm afraid that from what I can see a lot of them were signed by an autopen machine. This was commonly done even for people who worked with the astronauts. You could check this astronaut autopens website to see which of the photos were signed with that and which ones were hand-signed. Hand-signed ones from the Apollo era vary a lot in value, so you'd have to let us know which are hand-signed.

Ken Havekotte
Member

Posts: 2914
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001

posted 07-13-2013 08:35 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ken Havekotte   Click Here to Email Ken Havekotte     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Just from a very quick glance, on the second frame, it looks to be a good Swigert-inscribed autograph, but others are indeed autopens. I wonder if Swigert was one of the astronaut silver snoopy award presenters to the recipient.

rgarner
Member

Posts: 1193
From: Shepperton, United Kingdom
Registered: Mar 2012

posted 07-13-2013 09:34 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for rgarner   Click Here to Email rgarner     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I will point out that an Autopen is a signature that was signed by a machine. Anyone not in the collecting world may not necessarily know that.

garyd2831
Member

Posts: 640
From: Syracuse, New York, USA
Registered: Oct 2009

posted 07-13-2013 10:00 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for garyd2831   Click Here to Email garyd2831     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Just want to say GREAT looking jacket! That to me would look great in some time of shadow box or framed display. Of course it would be a large display, but a very nice one indeed.

ohso
New Member

Posts: 5
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Jul 2013

posted 07-13-2013 03:18 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ohso     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thank you for all the info, I have gotten a chance to look in to the collection a little more.

The Snoopy pins are attached to the blue jacket. I tried to look underneath to get some markings of them but couldn't really read them. The award letters do not say when they were flown and I have not found the certificates yet. The award letters say they are awarded by Robert Gibson and Joe Engle. From the back of the pins I can see they do not have clasp but actual pins and one has a chain on it.

I went though some of the personalized signed photos and found that a decent amount say astronaut under their titles. I have yet to make a list of the names yet.

I think I will take the advice and get the jacket mounted and framed.

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