posted 08-09-2020 09:55 AM
I like checks signed by astronauts (and authors and inventors and others) since they are a very dependable way to get a genuine autograph. Of course signed photos look much better, but a couple of times I've framed checks with photos (or book covers) for a great display.Anyway, to answer your question about value, a few astronauts like Cunningham have been selling their old checks for years. Conrad, Eisele, Schirra, and Irwin checks sometimes appear. They are pretty cheap - I just checked eBay past sales, and examples from those four have sold for under $100 recently. But they are usually not from all the way back when they were astronauts.
In fact checks dated back to the 1960s don't come up for sale very often, but when they do they usually go for a little less than other "average" signed items. An example was a Gus Grissom 1963 check that sold for $666, which is a little less than how much one of those small photos signed by him sell for. A letter with amazing content, or a particularly nice photo, will sell for more than a check does.
I believe the record for the highest price paid for the kind of check you are looking for was over $27,000 for a check Neil Armstrong signed on the morning of the Apollo 11 launch.
posted 08-09-2020 02:40 AM
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