Posts: 155 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: Oct 2004
posted 06-20-2020 10:46 PM
During the Apollo 7 mission, on October 13, 1968, Bill Dana appeared on the Ed Sullivan show as the character "Jose Jimenez" wearing an astronaut suit with the Apollo 7 patch.
I believe the patch version he is wearing is the crew flown "souvenir" version. Does anyone else have an opinion?
MOL Member
Posts: 155 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: Oct 2004
posted 10-27-2021 09:16 PM
Well lo and behold this very patch is now up for auction in the next Heritage sale (Nov. 12-13, 2021) along with many other items from Bill Dana's estate:
A 4" x 3" embroidered crew patch that was given to Bill Dana and worn on an appearance of Ed Sullivan. Due to a scheduling conflict, Apollo 7 was the only launch from Mercury through Apollo that Dana was unable to attend. As a token of friendship, the crew sent him a crew patch that he could adhere to his Jose Jimenez flight suit for his Sullivan appearance. It has been handsomely paired with a 5" x 7" (sight size) B&W photo of him and Sullivan and framed to an overall 14.75" x 16.75".
Joel Katzowitz Member
Posts: 842 From: Marietta GA USA Registered: Dec 1999
posted 10-29-2021 04:24 PM
In 2008, I won an auction lot for a Mercury-Atlas-8 flown one dollar bill. The bill was flown by Wally Schirra for Bill Dana and was gifted to his good friend after the landing.
When I received the bill it was framed and inscribed as being flown on Wally's Sigma 7 flight on "October 5, 1962." Of course I realized that the flight actually occurred on October 3. I reached out to Bill to ask him about the discrepancy and he said his birthday was October 5, so as a joke, he inscribed that date as opposed to the actual mission date.