posted 03-27-2021 04:16 PM               

My bid was a bit of a flyer and honestly I thought the item would go to somebody else for more.

Does anyone know how common these Apollo suit X-Rays might be and specifically that of the Armstrong gloves? I'm a bit concerned the price suggests an issue of the X-Ray being mass-replicated or something else that makes them less special than I'd assumed. Of course maybe I just valued (over-valued?) the item more than others.

posted 03-27-2021 05:03 PM               

I can't say for sure, but at the time, there may have been twin 11"x14" X-ray sets of all the worn/flown Apollo spacesuit components that had been used by most of the crewmen.

In my own collection I did own several different images of Aldrin's suit, but later had them sold, as they were advertised as a "a new space artwork form." Rather that statement is true or not, I'll leave that up to the buyer(s) of them.

It does bring up a question, though, that I have often wondered about; Would it be possible for someone to duplicate or re-shoot from the original negs if they had similar X-ray equipment of that era? I would think not, however, in this day and age, maybe nothing is impossible.

posted 03-28-2021 01:48 PM               

And your last question certainly crossed my mind. One can still buy fairly standard 14x17” X-Ray film sheets which would be light sensitive for possibly making a contact print from an original.

posted 04-28-2021 07:20 PM               

While I haven't seen the vendor's finished product, one sign of easy duplication is the $50 cost for notable X-Rays being offered as copies.

The purchased eBay 14"x17" gloves X-ray precisely matches that from a gloves/boots X-ray pair sold at Sotheby's in 2018 with a visible black frame surrounding the x-ray image and a small half-round notch for alignment/emulsion-side identification.

An RR Auction April 2020 lot with a lightbox-mounted boot X-ray also shows an outer "frame" and notch.

In contrast, a group of four X-rays from Nate Sanders in 2015 exhibits neither frame nor notch. Strangely, the boots X-ray has "7/7/69" and "50" reversed versus other examples?

The earliest auction of Apollo suit X-rays I recall was Lunar Legacies in November 2011. Images are missing but I've confirmed with Don Willis these X-rays were 14"x17" (despite being listed at 11"x14") and do not have the frame or notch.

My theory is the additional perimeter frame and alignment notch, absent from earlier suit X-ray auction examples, represent markers for a recent duplication.

Ken, do you have any photos of the Weakland X-rays from the ASM Space Walk of Fame examples mentioned above? Are they related to those in the Lunar Legacies sale in 2011?

posted 04-28-2021 10:24 PM               

You can see tissue and bone much better in person when viewing these X-rays with the naked eye.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Havekotte:
It does bring up a question, though, that I have often wondered about; Would it be possible for someone to duplicate or re-shoot from the original negs...

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posted 04-29-2021 06:06 AM               

Several of the Armstrong X-rays as well as other astronaut images are still here and some components have four copies of the same X-ray in our possession.

It would be fair to assume that somewhere between five and ten copies would be a reasonable assumption as I know several were sold and donated to other organizations.

I did find multiples of Fred Haise's suite, gloves, boot X-rays all signed by Fred some years ago.

posted 04-29-2021 09:43 AM               

Glad there are still some vintage X-ray references at ASM and appreciate your looking over the inventory. I would have reached out to you earlier but mistakenly assumed the X-rays were no longer there.

Curious to test my theory — do your ASM X-rays (which I assume are all 14"x17") exhibit the dark perimeter frame and/or have a little half-round alignment notch along one edge?

posted 04-29-2021 11:12 AM               

You posted a link to an Armstrong x-ray with these characteristics which was sold at Sotheby's in 2018. The Sotheby's listing for that x-ray and the one sold with it refers to the fact that the consignor/the owner of the X-rays was Jack Weakland, a NASA x-ray technician.

Bearing in mind that Weakland a NASA X-ray technician has been consigning x-rays to auction with the notch, outer frame and of the same size as your Armstrong xray and my Aldrin, this may well indicate that your Armstrong and my Aldrin could well be from Weakland which in turn may indicate they are period x-rays.

I am interested to see what Chuck has to say when he has checked the Weakland x-rays at the museum.

posted 05-02-2021 09:44 PM               

I'm glad to hear that duplicates of the originals are possible, but I'm still a bit wary after reading this thread. I'm not convinced these are originals now.

I've worked with Todd Mueller multiple times over the years. He's not directly fraudulent, but he can be a very questionable seller. He doesn't forge signatures or create fraudulent documents. But he's willing to "authenticate" basically anything and sell it with his seal of approval. I've purchased multiple astronaut autographs from him which were approved by Steve Zarelli. But I've also been burned a few times.

Todd is also willing to push moral boundaries to make a quick buck. Most notably, he was the one who convinced Neil Armstrong's barber to secretly sell him Neil's haircut trimmings. I'll admit that I bought one of the strands years after Neil died, because I really wanted to own one and it won't bother Neil at this point. But in Todd's position, I never would have done something like that to Neil. And once Neil requested it back, Todd should have agreed immediately.

Todd also has a nasty habit of taking dirt from famous graves, and breaking pieces off historical buildings, so he can sell fragments on his site. And while he claims to offer a lifetime guarantee on all his items, he's notoriously pushy to those who request it. If an item fails third-party authentication, he'll just claim that his own expertise is more reliable than anyone else's.

So I'm confident Todd wouldn't directly make fraudulent X-Rays. But I'm also confident that he'd have no problem purchasing a stack of them from any random person and reselling them as genuine.

posted 05-03-2021 12:07 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by spacehiker:
I have one of Buzz Aldrin's boot x-rays...

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14X17 X-Ray of Neil Armstrong's worn gloves taken just a couple of weeks before his famed Apollo XI flight. These x-ray's (sic) were taken on July 7, 1969 by Jack R. Weakland who worked in the NASA x-ray lab from 1968 to 1979...

When asked earlier, Mueller messaged to me "A radiologist provided all of the X-Rays on famous people we've listed. It was a brilliant ​idea on his part to duplicate the X-Rays and sell them."

It's not only space X-rays being sold so seems unlikely Weakland had a role in a wide range of duplicates with these frames and notches.

I won’t clutter the thread with more photos but Don Willis of Lunar Lagacies was kind enough to provide a photo from the Aldrin boots sold in his 2011 sale. Same X-ray image as yours but no frame or notch present.

Hopefully Chuck can add his findings to the mix but I'm not feeling too good about age, attributions, and provenance of these X-rays with differing borders.

posted 05-03-2021 01:13 PM               

I noticed that several of the X-Rays he's sold over the years are identical to the ones being offered for $50 at the site mentioned previously. My guess is that Mueller bought a large stack of these modern copied X-Rays, and is now trying to pass them off as originals.

And looking back at the description, it sounds like an intentionally vague way of admitting that they're replicas, while also trying to make them sound original:

"This is the same x-ray others are selling including Julien's auction house and others who are getting as much as $30,000 each for some of these pieces. There are clearly several of this x-ray around the market but we can't locate more than 10 of this particular x-ray that have sold making it still exceptionally rare."

posted 06-09-2021 02:59 PM               

After receiving the item and having some doubts about its age I contacted him and asked him to clarify the background.

His eBay listing indicated that the x-ray was a vintage Apollo era x-ray taken by Jack Weakland.

He replied and stated:

"I emailed the radiologist in Houston, Texas who sold these to me for facts concerning when they were created and how. He should get back to me this evening. I don't know the answer to this question so my email to him should address this issue".

"Like we've always said, these are copies of the originals, more recently made. I know that's the only way that the people that I deal with can produce that kind of volume. Researching Juliens, R&R and other auction houses selling these, it looks like these are exact copies of the original that they sold. Since they've sold some of them multiple times, I would think that the subsequent ones that they sold have to be copies.

I don't know if the people I buy from possess the original and are making copies of that or they have a copy and and are making a copy of a copy. I don't know if it's because of HIPAA laws, but it's kind of kind of a black market out there, not a whole lot of information.

Sadly it seems that a number of people have been misled into paying thousands of dollars for what they believed to be vintage x-rays at auction when in fact it seems that many of these x-rays were in fact modern reproductions. Clearly we don't know who consigned those x-rays and the consignees may well have believed the x-rays they were consigning to be genuine vintage items.

posted 06-24-2021 02:39 PM               

It arrived today, and it's tiny. They look like a child's boots. So if you're considering buying a replica, I strongly advise against it.

posted 05-05-2022 11:29 PM               

Regarding the typography that identifies these images, how was this achieved? Were these applied during the exposure, or are they applied during processing?

The letters in the Armstrong overboot image letters appear to overlap, particularly the R, M, S and T in Armstrong.

X-ray markers used to identify left and right that are used during the exposure are small lead letters inside an acrylic block that can be set on the X-ray table, film canister, or placed on the subject. These are singular letters, and if two were placed side-by-side, they would have a wide kerning between characters. These are shown in the glove X-ray to distinguish the left and right gloves.

If, on the other hand, whoever produced these images also made a lead pattern of letters daisy-chained together to form the word Armstrong, wouldn’t all of the letters overlap or be spaced apart consistently?

Given that the letters have different kerning between the Neil and Armstrong, and the typeface has rounded ends, something more complicated to make from lead, perhaps the titles were applied post-exposure. All of the online examples of X-ray markers that I can find have squared ends to the characters and appear to have been cut using a blade.

If this is the case, is some type of stamp used to remove the chemical layers from the film, or apply some type of dye that reacts with the film? would the letters not be so uniform? And would the stamp have more consistent kerning?

The rounded end characters, I believe, make it more likely that the labels were applied post-exposure. But how long after?

During interviews with the people at ILC who sewed the suit components, they identified that sewing pins left in the suits were a real hazard that required several safety checks to be done to ensure no pins were left. One of these checks was X-rayed image inspections. When were the overboots completed? Are these ILM images, or did NASA X-ray the gloves and overboots multiple times?

Did ILC produce the lunar overboot? Was the overboot installed in the LM or CSM, and how long before launch? (the Apollo 12 stowage list B indicates that the overshoes were stored in the LM prior to launch)