posted 12-23-2010 12:38 PM               

I almost bought the first one of those that Heritage sold, but I sent them the "Was it flown?" question, and they replied No. But that was just for that particular medallion.

posted 12-23-2010 01:11 PM               

In the case of Apollo 14, 24 medals were returned (the 25th was retained by an intermediary between the crew and Mint) and they were subsequently melted down to create mini-coins, which were then distributed to members of the Franklin Mint Collectors Society on the occasion of the Society's first anniversary.

The remaining 175 Apollo 14 flown medals were divided among the crew members. Edgar Mitchell has since sold some of his (what became of Shepard's and Roosa's medals is unknown).

With regards to Apollo 13, for many years following the mission, it was held in common belief by collectors that Lovell had returned all 200 to the Mint, given the outcome of the Apollo 13 mission. These medals were then subsequently melted down and added to additional unflown silver to mint the mission generic Project Apollo set of 20 medals.

According to the Franklin Mint, due to an error on their part, the first release of the Project Apollo medals contained no flown silver. A subsequent re-striking was said to have corrected that issue, but in the years since it has been suggested that the solution was to add the metal from a single Apollo 13 medal.

It wasn't until the last couple of years when Lovell came forward with his collection of flown medals was it learned that not all were returned to the Mint.

posted 01-16-2011 06:09 PM               

Lovell's accompanying certification letter, equivocally, only advises that the particular medals were part of the "original" 200 specimens that were "made for me to take aboard the mission..." He glaringly avoids stating that they were actually "taken" on the mission which he almost certainly would have written had they actually been "taken" on the mission.

It is possible that he is contractually not allowed to state (for whatever reason) that they were taken if they were in fact flown or that he is avoiding some sort of potential legal controversy, but that's very doubtful given Heritage's representations that they were not flown.

Why these medals might not have been taken on the flight, I certainly don't know. Maybe some were inadvertently left behind, maybe NASA wouldn't allow all 200 on the flight, maybe some of the "original" specimens were replaced with others...

posted 01-24-2011 09:53 AM               

It is now clear that the 'common knowledge' is wrong.

Newspaper reports from 1972 covering the the Congressional investigations into the Apollo 14 Franklin Mint medals (as part of the larger hearings about the Apollo 15 unauthorized covers) make reference to the Apollo 13 flown medals. From the Toledo Blade:

The Apollo 14 coin exchange can be traced back to the crew of Apollo 13, who brought 20 silver coins into space for Philadelphia's Franklin Mint, but were prevented from landing on the moon or going into moon orbit by an accident in space.

When the crew of Apollo 13 returned to earth, they sent one of the 20 coins back to Franklin and kept the other 19 coins. Most of the coins were given to Apollo engineers who helped bring the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft back to Earth.

Still unknown is what relationship there is, if any, between the unflown medals that are part of a series of 200 and the 20 flown medals.