Robert Pearlman Editor Posts: 43639 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
|
posted 04-21-2020 10:53 AM
Monday's (April 20) episode of Antiques Roadshow (McNay Art Museum, Hour 1) included a segment about a "prototype model of the Mercury capsule" and escape tower tested in a wind tunnel at Langley Research Center in Virginia. The owner's father was an aeronautical engineer with NASA's Space Task Group who tested these models. The owner explained: From time to time, they would throw them in a junk pile behind the wind tunnel and one day, for whatever reason, he took one home and it sat in the garage for over 40 years. It was discovered when we moved my father and mother up here [to San Antonio] from Seabrook, Texas, where he worked at the Johnson Space Center.
The appraiser, James Supp of the Coronado Trading Co. in Idaho, said the model was most likely made in 1958 or 1959 and estimated its auction value to be between $60,000 and $80,000 and an insurance value of $80,000 to $120,000. The owner said it an "interesting" appraisal, but the model was not for sale and it might end up in a museum. (The same episode also included a Silver Snoopy pin, which is discussed here.) |