posted 03-26-2013 11:27 PM               

Other notable items include: a visually stunning gold plated exact production representative example of the lunar traverse gravimeter used on Apollo 17, a portable life support system dust plug carried to the lunar surface on board the Apollo 12 lunar module Intrepid, and a highly-prized flight plan page, notated in-flight by all three Apollo 11 crew members.

The space treasure continues with a highly important Apollo lunar module flight director attitude indicator, an exceptionally pristine Apollo 17 flown robbins medal with handwritten certification from Cernan, and a scarce Apollo Block 1 Control Panel.

The over 800 lot auction, bursting with both rare flown artifacts and unique signed material, will take place from May 16 to May 23 — the full preview will be available beginning April 26th.

posted 05-01-2013 03:35 AM               

RR Auctions Announces 2013 Space & Aviation Autograph & Artifact Auction

Offerings include over 850 museum quality artifacts from the Golden Age of aviation and space flight

RR Auctions is pleased to announce its Space and Aviation Autograph and Artifact Auction, scheduled to take place from May 16th to May 23rd, 2013. This massive auction of over 850 premiere lots of space and aviation memorabilia and artifacts includes some of the rarest and most impressive artifacts yet offered by RR in this rapidly growing and highly sought after genre of Americana collecting.

This historic sale includes fascinating selections of space and aviation related autographs, covers, photos, patches, hardware, correspondence, reports, and many types of flown personal mementos and equipment originating from many of the aviators' and astronauts' collections themselves, as well as from the personal holdings of many of the hobby's leading space artifact collectors.

"There seems to be no end to the global appetite of collectors of this rare and historic material — especially from the amazing Apollo lunar landing missions," said Bobby Livingston, Vice President, Sales & Marketing for RR Auctions. "The Great Space Race was truly a global event, and the collection of memorabilia and artifacts tied to that momentous moment in history is highly prized and sought after. RR Auctions is proud to be able to offer some of the finest and most interesting material available, and this assemblage is by far our most impressive since we began offering specialty aviation and space memorabilia auctions several years ago."

Some representative highlights from the 850+ lots of vintage aviation and space artifact include:

• A robust offering of flown Robbins medallions from 13 missions, including the key missions of Apollo 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, as well as from ASTP, Skylab and the Shuttle.

• Over 85 lots of historic Apollo 11 material, including a flown Apollo 11 rotational control handle shared by moonwalker Buzz Aldrin and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins during mankind's first lunar landing mission.

• And 29 lots of Apollo 17 material from the last lunar landing mission of Apollo, including fantastic lunar orbit items such as a flown 17 foot long lunar orbit map and lunar orbit EVA cue card, and lunar surface EVA cue cards and a lunar surface EVA map plate used aboard the lunar rover.

• An absolutely amazing gold plated Lunar Traverse Gravimeter, a production model of the same gravimeter used on the lunar surface during the Apollo 17 mission. One of only three in existence — one left on the lunar surface by Apollo 17, the mission's back-up at the Smithsonian, and one other at Columbia University.

• A unique assemblage of space flown and lunar surface religious artifacts include microfilm bibles from both Apollo and the International Space Station, an Earth-orbit papal flag, a lunar surface flown prayer covenant, and an astounding 750+ page full-text daily prayer and devotional book flown and used aboard Skylab and one of the very few space flown books available to private collectors.

• And many, many more exciting and historic lots.

As a renowned autograph auction company, RRAuction has not forgotten the essential element of its core business — signatures. Numerous autographs from the best of the best are to be offered, from Wernher von Braun to Neil Armstrong; from astronauts such as Cernan, Lovell, Anders, to cosmonauts such as Gagarin, Leonov, and Tereshkova; to some of America's earliest aviation pioneers like Earhart, Lindbergh, Hughes and Wright.

"Our last auction set record prices for many classes of this material. Aviation and space enthusiasts will not be disappointed," said Livingston. "Obviously, there are too many lots to list in a single press release, so I encourage everyone interested to get online and preview the entire catalog. The auction goes live on May 16th, and global interest is expected to be intense."

For more information on this historic auction, including how to order a catalog, how to bid online, and to see the full 850+ lot description preview, please go to the RRAuction website.

posted 05-03-2013 09:35 AM               

The consignor has told us, according to his memory and the fact that this unit was stored in his (post-retirement) "Apollo 11" storage box, that this unit was removed from Apollo 11 after the flight and given to him by NASA personnel to be display mounted for presentation purposes. It was never retrieved and he stored it in his office safe awaiting retrieval while he was at NASA. When he retired he was told to clean out his safe and to throw away anything not currently needed. Instead of throwing this piece away, he decided to keep it as a souvenir of his years at NASA. He subsequently told one of the Apollo 11 astronauts about the piece and asked him if he wanted it. When told no, he put it away again until now.

posted 05-03-2013 10:46 AM               

The Apollo 11 astronauts turned down other items offered to later crews, including the patches from their spacesuits, as they recognized the significance of the hardware from the first lunar landing.

posted 05-18-2013 01:41 AM               

Neil Armstrong's heartbeat, Apollo joystick pulled from auction after NASA inquiry

The joystick controller used to steer the Apollo 11 spacecraft to the moon, the original recording of Neil Armstrong's heartbeat when he took humankind's first "small step" onto the lunar surface, and the complete tool kit carried on NASA's final manned moon mission won't be auctioned later this month, despite international headlines that heralded the rare space artifacts' sale.

...The rare moon memorabilia was pulled from the sale after NASA requested time to look into the artifacts' ownership, according to RR. The agency's general counsel wanted to ensure that the items were no longer federal property.

posted 05-18-2013 08:12 AM               

He purchased that item based on the original consignor's claim of ownership. He purchased the joystick in good faith, spent the money and NASA did not stop the auction.

NASA did know that these auctions were occurring, because the OIG reports are full of investigations into many of these auctions with no replevin action being taken.

posted 05-18-2013 08:39 AM               

Granted, he could be under economic pressure that could make that option less desirable, but there's no requirement that the consignor feel that he is due a refund. There is also the (altruistic) award of reuniting a historic artifact with its source.

posted 05-18-2013 11:19 AM               

When I first read your article, my initial thought was, "here we go again". Granted the law has been changed for the astronauts and not for the regular Joes, but the actions, timing, and circumstances around NASA's interest in these artifacts seems to be the same as the Apollo 13 Lovell checklist debacle.

posted 05-18-2013 11:58 AM               

It has been, and always will be, that when dealing with former federal property, provenance is paramount. For many years, collectors paid that key lesson lip service (the Apollo 11 rotation and translational hand controllers are an excellent example; the original auction descriptions made it clear that there was never any formal transfer and those who bid and bought them were knowingly taking their chances by doing so).

I was guilty of the same. I bought pieces where the paperwork was "missing" or which the chain of ownership wasn't full documented. In hindsight, where I couldn't fill in the provenance for those items with additional research, I made a mistake adding the pieces to my collection.

posted 05-18-2013 12:13 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Financial gain, or even compensation, does not need to drive our collecting habits.

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Compensation does drive our collecting habits and always will. After all, most artifacts are sold for compensation rather than being given freely away to the next custodian.

posted 05-18-2013 12:17 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by rjurek349:
...without the astronaut provenance, if NASA made an inquiry, a collector would still have to go through the legal costs and hassles to prove proper ownership etc.

---

In fact, if collectors come to believe that only astronaut certification will do, I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually see items being being sold with forged astronaut documentation. (I would be disappointed, but not surprised.)

posted 05-18-2013 12:35 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Greggy_D:
Compensation does drive our collecting habits and always will.

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posted 05-18-2013 12:51 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
...there's no requirement that the consignor feel that he is due a refund

---

posted 05-18-2013 01:07 PM               

I think the consignor of the RHC will also need to be made whole again. The seller will have to return the money. Especially, if he sold a stolen good.

The consignor will wind up giving the RHC to the National Air and Space Museum just as Mitchell did, but since it is "stolen" property, he cannot even take a tax deduction for the donation. I am not even sure the consignor can claim a tax deduction for the loss of income due to the purchase of a stolen item. If you can do so on IRS form 4684, then it would be pennies on the dollar. While it is easy to say a third party can take the loss, it is unfair for anybody to take a loss of $80,000.

As for forged COAs, that is a risk. Photo documentation will help with that issue. We also have a pretty good knowledge developed over the years of most of what the astronauts brought home. So attempting to forge a COA for something like a lunar boot or a complete RHC arm assembly would raise a question to most of the knowledgeable space collectors which inhabit this board.

You can also forge GSA documents too. Anything can be forged, which is why our paper money is changing.

posted 05-18-2013 01:38 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Larry McGlynn:
I believe you are very slowly being made whole.

---

And while the money is nice, I would have still turned the artifact over even if there was no hope for compensation.

posted 05-27-2013 12:41 PM               

248 Lunar Module Translation Control Assembly
249 Apollo Rotation Hand Grip Controller
681 Lunar Traverse Gravimeter (and 269 Beryllium Gear Housing)
246 Apollo Block I Control Panel
247 Apollo Sextant (and 288 Sextant Lens)

585 Dave Scott PLSS Cable

posted 05-28-2013 12:19 PM               

Regarding that 30 minute rule, on one of the items I was bidding on, I think a counter bidder was confused as to how the rule exactly worked. The bidder would "snipe" with 5 seconds to go out of the entire 30 minutes, thus resetting the clock. I would then place my new bid almost immediately and the counter bidder would wait until the next 30 minutes were almost up. We went through this dance for a few hours before I finally gave up and went to bed, seeing that I had a 7am meeting the next morning.

I did pick up:

805 Flown STS-51F PDRS Ops Checklist

I did get into it a little deeper than I wanted, but as Jonathan just mentioned in the Regency thread, you need to maybe go a little higher in order to acquire an item you really want. He is right when he says we are "battling" with commercial interests in these auctions and I did not want to see another complete checklist possibly broken apart and sold page by page (like the STS-3 Lousma checklist). This win will ensure the STS-51F checklist will stay complete.

Item 802, the STS-51B Overmyer Flown Entry Checklist, really bothered me seeing that it was only 8 pages long. Granted this is how many pages were present when it was sold in 2003 via Aurora but it should (in my opinion) contain many more pages. Since the checklist was microfilmed by NASA, it would be easy to verify the original number of pages by requesting a copy.

posted 05-28-2013 04:48 PM               

That said, I do like the RR format overall as it allows you to follow every item through as far as you want to in the bidding and to direct your funds wherever you need to at any time.

In a classic live auction if you have the funds to either buy early lot A or late lot B you have to decide during the live bidding on the early lot how far to go before giving up and gambling on lot B instead. Then you might find lot B goes out of your range. At this point you realise you should have gone higher on lot A but it's too late.

In the classic live format early lots sometimes lose out because people save funds for later purchases and late lots lose out because people run out of funds before the auction gets that far.