— A two-piece flight suit made for the first astronaut to walk on the moon has surfaced at an auction benefiting a small space history museum in Florida.

The jacket and trousers were part of a training or spare inflight coverall garment sized for Neil Armstrong, the commander of NASA's 1969 Apollo 11 mission. Together with a pair of boots (not included in the sale), the Teflon-fabric clothing were duplicates of the garb that Armstrong wore when not in his bulky spacesuit during the transit to and from Earth and when inside the lunar module "Eagle."

"I am excited to announce that Bid Again Auctions and the American Space Museum will be selling Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 inflight coveralls used in training for that mission," said Chuck Jeffrey, a member of the board for the Titusville, Florida museum, its collections' analyst, space memorabilia specialist and state-licensed auctioneer. "The odds of the jacket coming to such a small auction is mind boggling, but to have both pieces show up [as consignments] in a one-week span is beyond comprehension."

The Oct. 17 sale, which includes 395 lots, will be hosted by Jeffrey's Bid Again Auctions firm on the Invaluable website. The auction catalog is now online, available to browse and for registered participants to place advance proxy bids.

Clothing worn in training or flight by the Apollo astronauts, especially the crew of the first moon landing, is rare in private hands. All of the flown spacesuits were transferred by NASA to the Smithsonian and many of the inflight garments are in museums, too. That said, flown and ground-used examples of the inflight coveralls have emerged for sale over the years, either from the astronauts' own collections or by members of their support teams.

The latter is the case for both the Armstrong jacket and trousers. The two pieces came from two different consignors, according to Jeffrey.

The jacket, which includes its American flag and NASA insignia silkscreened patches, has a label on the inner neck identifying it as part number BW-1060-002 and serial number 1078. It was sized for "Armstrong" and manufactured on Jan. 23, 1969. For comparison, the flown jacket, which is in the National Air and Space Museum, had the same part number and serial 1038.

The pants, which were part number BW-1060-001 and serial number 1001, were originally said to be gifted by Armstrong to a member of the team that kept his flight garments sterile before their use. Letters of provenance from the consignors will accompany the separate sales of the jacket and trousers.

Armstrong died in 2012 at the age of 82. Memorabilia associated with his career, especially related to Apollo 11, have generally commanded a premium when compared to similar items from other missions and astronauts. A law enacted soon after Armstrong's death confirmed that the Apollo astronauts retained legal title to the mission-used equipment they kept as mementos.

Armstrong's jacket has an opening bid of $50,000 and has been estimated by Jeffrey to sell for $800,000 to $1.2 million. The trousers opened at $10,000 and are expected to bring in $50,000 to $75,000.

"The commission on this sale could substantially change the financial situation of the American Space Museum," Jeffrey told collectSPACE. Operated by the non-profit U.S. Space Walk of Fame Foundation, the museum relies on auctions, as well as the support of its members and visitors to sustain its exhibits and monuments honoring and recognizing all of America's space programs and their workforces.

Prior sales of inflight coverall garments have spanned a few thousand to millions of dollars. A two-piece training set worn by Apollo 12 commander Charles Conrad sold for $12,500 in 2015. The jacket and trousers worn by a technician during a vacuum chamber test brought in $3,385 three years later.

The jacket that Armstrong's Apollo 11 crewmate Buzz Aldrin wore on the mission set a record by selling for $2,772,500 in 2022, exceeding the pre-auction estimate set by Sotheby's of $2 million.

Other highlights in the American Space Museum October auction include a stamped envelope carried to the surface of the moon by the Apollo 15 crew (est. $10,000 to $12,000); a U.S. flag flown to the moon on Apollo 16 (est. $7,000 to $10,000); and a complete core memory module from a guidance computer for the Saturn V rocket (est. $40,000 to $50,000).