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Author
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Topic: Autographs on Apollo 8 Fitness Council display
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neo1022
Member Posts: 281
From: Santa Monica, CA
Registered: Jun 2013
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posted 05-24-2017 10:48 PM
   
I've been looking at the Apollo 8 President's Council on Physical Fitness flown patch presentations lately. I've noticed that almost all of the auction descriptions state that the signatures on the Earthrise photo are "not authentic" or "autopen" (the Lovell "flown certification" signature is always identified as real). As far as I can tell, these Earthrise signatures look good. They match no known autopen pattern, and moreover, each of the presentations seems to show unique signatures on the image — none of them match. If the signatures are not autopen (and not secreterial), they must be legit given that they were distributed by Lovell, right? Or am I missing something? Really curious to see what the experts think. Here is an image that shows the variations in signatures on the presentations...  |
JasonB
Member Posts: 1091
From:
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted 05-25-2017 10:11 AM
To me the Lovell signature looks good but the Anders and Borman ones look bad. Especially the Anders. They may have all been signed by Lovell at the time or possibly a secretary did Anders and Borman. The Borman signature looks very written out as opposed to actually signed. |
Steve Zarelli
Member Posts: 731
From: Upstate New York, USA
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 05-25-2017 12:07 PM
I would reserve judgement on the Borman pending further study. But the Anders is a secretary in my opinion. |
rgarner
Member Posts: 1193
From: Shepperton, United Kingdom
Registered: Mar 2012
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posted 05-25-2017 12:26 PM
I've seen this before. I questioned the authenticity of the patch and I'm still unsure. |
neo1022
Member Posts: 281
From: Santa Monica, CA
Registered: Jun 2013
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posted 05-25-2017 06:24 PM
Why are you suspicious of the authenticity of the patch and display? Vintage examples of this display are often accompanied by Lovell's contemporaneous presentation letter discussing the President's Council on Physical Fitness, describing the display and certifying that the patch was flown. And the patch is also certified as flown on the display itself (signed by Lovell). Moreover, all examples I've seen have intact, vintage, sealed paper backings — which in effect function as tamper-proof seals. And in recent years, Lovell has sold unmounted PCPF patches as flown on Apollo 13, with certification letter indicating they were carried in his PPK. So, by his own account, he carried these patches on both Apollo missions. Curious to hear more... |
4allmankind
Member Posts: 1043
From: Dallas
Registered: Jan 2004
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posted 05-25-2017 07:03 PM
You took the words right out of my keyboard. Eager to learn why there are questions on the patch itself. |
rgarner
Member Posts: 1193
From: Shepperton, United Kingdom
Registered: Mar 2012
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posted 05-26-2017 01:47 AM
I have seen patches sold before from Lovell, but the configuration of this piece just raising my suspicions — it just doesn't feel right. Why would you cut away his signature to put in a frame like this? And I was under the impression that these particular patches always came with the same COA from Lovell (which doesn't match the certificate in this piece). Here are two examples: 1 | 2. I may be mistaken and Lovell may have made different COAs for some of these particular patches. Perhaps someone here knows whether or not that is true? |
neo1022
Member Posts: 281
From: Santa Monica, CA
Registered: Jun 2013
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posted 05-26-2017 02:19 AM
The cropping of the Lovell certification and the Earthrise signatures does look awkward, but this does appear to be a genuine vintage presentation (with, apparently, two good Lovell signatures – the one on the Earthrise photo, and the one on the flown certification). The letter that accompanied at least two known exemplars appears to describe the presentation pretty well (flown patch with Earthrise photo, combined into a single presentation), and Lovell repeats his certification that the patch was flown around the moon on Apollo 8 (signed with what is identified, in this case, as a secretarial signature — but this shouldn't matter, given the authentic signature that accompanies the flown certification in the presentation itself):  |
neo1022
Member Posts: 281
From: Santa Monica, CA
Registered: Jun 2013
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posted 12-06-2018 02:30 PM
Richard, the modern COAs you link to are from Lovell's Apollo 13 flown Fitness Patches (several of which have come up for auction recently). The Apollo 8 presentation under discussion is from 1970, and was given to colleagues on the President's Fitness Council as a "thank you" after the Apollo 8 mission (the first mission Lovell flew after being appointed to the Council). These did not come with a COA, as they are directly signed and certified as flown inside the frame. Also, despite your doubts about it "not looking right," as you can see from the 1970 letter that accompanies the presentation (posted above), the presentation is described perfectly, and again certifies that the patch was flown on Apollo 8. |
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