[University Archives] Space memorabilia (Jan 2026)

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Topic: [University Archives] Space memorabilia (Jan 2026)

SClarkson
Member

Posts: 74
From: Fairfield,
Registered: Sep 2012

posted 12-23-2025 09:32 AM

University Archives January 2026 auction is featuring 76 great space memorabilia items.

Included is a truly unique camera – a Hasselblad 203S Shuttle flown camera, one of only two in private hands (18 are known to be in museums and two were destroyed on Columbia.) The camera is fully outfitted with a flown film magazine, data module and more. Check out the full detailed description.

There is a large piece of a Mercury flown ablative heatshield, a beautiful Apollo 11 beta cloth patch signed by the entire crew (with Zarelli letter of authenticity), a very large piece of flown Apollo 11 Kapton, Neil Armstrong autographed white spacesuit photo plus an entire Apollo 11 crew autographed photo. Two lots feature Russian spacesuit gloves, three lots of lunar meteorites and lots containing additional spacesuit components and other NASA hardware.

The sale is on Jan. 7 at 10 a.m. EST. Space lots are 183 to 258. If you enter #spaceastronaut in the search bar all space items will be featured.

SpaceAholic
Member

Posts: 5531
From: Sierra Vista, Arizona
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 12-23-2025 11:00 AM

quote:
Originally posted by SClarkson:
There is a large piece of a Mercury flown ablative heatshield

Unless the auction house has some other supporting provenance to substantiate flown (and in particular manned mission flown) would not assume ablation as definitive of flight history. There was an extensive test campaign preceding operationalization of the Mercury heatshield which included ground based arc-jet tests to simulate reentry effects — in addition to unmanned flight test regime.

In my opinion, this looks to be residual from the former.

quote:
Two lots feature Russian spacesuit gloves

Lot 218 and presumably the accompanying COA are mistaken. The glove is neither from an Orlan-M nor could it have been worn/flown on TM-8 (the Orlan-M wasn't placed in service until the mid 1990's) and the pressure bladder/restraint layer (all Orlan variants) was of a significantly different design.

The lotted example may be a Baklan pressure suit glove or derivative (if not a Franken glove). Good example of why many "COAs" are essentially meaningless.

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