Swann Galleries, New York City

Swann Galleries’ third annual space exploration auction, held April 2 in Manhattan, offered a wide variety of items from nearly all of the outer space flights since the first Mercury launch in 1961. But the bidders’ strongest interest and the resulting high prices focused especially on the 11 Apollo missions from 1968 to 1972. There were 425 lots in the sale, about 155 of them consigned by 11 astronauts or their estates.

Strong bidding greeted technical material such as charts and checklists and a half-dozen lots related to Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945), who pioneered rocketry when he launched the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket in 1926. Flags and uniform patches also attracted top prices. As always, high value was given to items that had actually been flown in space, especially to the moon, particularly if they had gathered lunar dust. Models of spacecraft also placed at the upper end of the sale’s price list.

The highest price in the auction, $32,200 (including buyer’s premium), went to an 8½" x 10½" photographic film section navigational chart flown on Apollo 11 and marked with lunar dust. Estimated at $35,000/45,000, it had the inscription "Flown to the lunar surface on Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin," the astronaut who had consigned it to the Swann sale. Showing prominent moon craters, including Secchi, Lubbock, and Censorinus, it was an important guide during the lunar landing.

Aldrin and Neil Armstrong had taken the document with them in the lunar module Eagle when they left the spaceship Columbia, where Michael Collins waited for their return. Approaching the moon’s surface and looking straight down at it, the chart helped them identify the lunar craters, providing a critical verification that they were on course.

Another Apollo 11 lot stirring strong bidding competition was a flown lunar module (LM) lunar surface checklist page inscribed and signed by Buzz Aldrin, who had made notations on the document while the LM was on the moon. It sold for $27,600 (est. $7000/9000).

A lunar landing mission profile, 30" x 11", folded to 8" x 11", an 85-step diagram illustrating all key steps involved in an Apollo lunar landing mission, inscribed and signed by eight astronauts, made $5980 (est. $1000/1500). Other Apollo technical collectibles included an Apollo 16 lunar orbit chart, number two of 24 plates, approximately 7½" x 10½", carried to the lunar surface in LM Orion by Charles Duke and John Young in 1972, at $13,800 (est. $7000/9000); and, flown on the 1970 Apollo 13 mission, a lunar module contingency checklist sheet (est. $2500/3500) and a lunar module systems data book page (est. $1800/2500) with Fred Haise’s notes and calculations, both documents inscribed and signed by Haise, at $5750 each.

The auction began with the Goddard lots. A 5" x 8" single paper sheet with Goddard’s handwritten technical notes and drawings of a rocket engine valve and diaphragm cover made $18,400 (est. $7000/9000). A similar sheet with notes and drawings on both sides topped out at $12,650 (est. $7000/9000). Another with comments on alternative valve designs fetched $7475 (est. $7000/9000), while a typed letter signed by Goddard sold for $4830 (est. $3000/4000). The other two Goddard lots were passed.

Another category generating active competition was flown U.S. flags. They included a 4" x 6" flag carried to the moon on Apollo 11, inscribed and signed by Michael Collins, at $17,250 (est. $10,000/12,000); a 12" x 18" flag flown on Gemini V, inscribed and signed by Gordon Cooper, at $8050 (est. $8000/10,000); and a 5½" x 8" flag aboard the Mercury Faith 7 mission, also inscribed and signed by Cooper, at $5750 (est. $5000/7000).

Medallions and cloth patches were also of obvious interest to bidders. Among them were a 4" high flown crew patch from Apollo 10 mounted in a metal frame on a typewritten letter signed by Thomas Stafford at $9775 (est. $3000/4000); a 4" diameter patch flown on Apollo 12 in a metal frame on a typewritten letter signed by Gordon Cooper at $8050 (est. $3500/4500); Gordon Cooper’s flown patch from Gemini V, the first mission where crew members had a designed patch on their space suits, at $5980 (est. $4000/5000); and a 5" flown patch from the Apollo/Soyuz mission with the initials "TPS," for the mission commander Thomas P. Stafford, between the crew members’ names, with a typed letter signed by Stafford, at $5980 (est. $3000/4000).

Falling below its estimate but topping the prices realized for medallions was a flown Apollo 11 Robbins medallion with a typed letter signed by Paul Weitz at $5750 (est. $6000/8000).

Some of the most aggressive competition in the auction came as would-be buyers jousted to buy fine scale models of space vehicles. A 12" long metal replica of the Vostok, the world’s first manned spacecraft that carried Yuri Gagarin into orbit in 1961, sold for $11,500 (est. $7000/8000). Runners-up on the category’s price list were a 14" high metal Soyuz rocket displayed with Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft approaching for docking at $10,925 (est. $4500/5500); a space shuttle model, 14" high and 18" long with two solid rocket boosters on each side, at $8625 (est. $1200/1500); and a 26" high model of an Apollo command and service module mounted atop the spacecraft lunar module adapter section of the Saturn launch vehicle, distributed by the manufacturer, North American Aviation, Inc., to a very limited number of top NASA and contractor executives, at $8050 (est. $4000/5000).