posted 01-12-2017 09:20 AM               

I am sharing what he wrote as the sale may be of interest to some in our community:

I obtained the hardhat — along with other the NASA-related material — from the family of Brian Montgomery, a Marshall Space Flight Center employee who worked with von Braun on several projects, including Apollo 15 and 16. Montgomery's family shared that von Braun gave the hardhat to him upon his retirement.

My personal background is in business journalism – specifically research – which has made me almost compulsively skeptical. So when I'm presented with an item like this, something of such astonishing rarity, my initial reaction is inevitably doubt. I always set out to disprove – rather than to prove – authenticity. (It makes no sense to me initially to assume authenticity, as the temptation will be to interpret research in such a way as to support a conclusion already reached.)

I have rock-solid family provenance, including a large box of NASA books, correspondence and other items proving Montgomery's working relationship with von Braun. I also have a photo signed by von Braun, inscribed to "Monty," von Braun's nickname for Montgomery. But one thing still gave me pause: The hardhat is marked "V BRAUN," rather than "VON BRAUN" or "W VON BRAUN".

I discussed the matter with a museum curator familiar with von Braun, and he suggested that, for many reasons, it would not have been unusual for "V. Braun" to have been used as an abbreviation for von Braun's last name. And even if it were, the person in charge of affixing lettering to hardhats needn't have been – in the normal performance of his job duties – much of a linguist. But I still wished I had something a little more concrete.

Then I located a video clip on Getty Images. It's a newsreel from the "Greatest Headlines of the Century" series, clipping together old 1940s footage of the V2 rocket with early 1950s footage of von Braun. (You can tell that the von Braun footage is later, as his face filled out quite a bit between 1946 and the 1950s.) At about the 11-second mark, after replaying dozens of times, I realized that indeed I had von Braun's hardhat... and video of him wearing it.

posted 01-14-2017 08:02 AM            

Auction includes a hardhat owned by Dr. von Braun, an invitation to Apollo 11 launch with envelope and numbered credential card, a Saturn flight evaluation report, a set of 1969 Snoopy Apollo 11 stickers, and more.