Anyone know about Robbins Medals? I was watching this one and it sold for $2,306.25. Was that a good price (or too high or too low)? I found quite a bit of info about the Apollo ones but very little about the later missions, like this one from Atlantis. One source said there were a total of 10 gold medals (9 flown and 1 not flown) for STS-51-J. General info: http://spaceflownartifacts.com/flown_robbins_medallions.html "STS-51-J was the 21st NASA Space Shuttle mission and the first flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-J
Howard Weinberger wrote two books about Robbins medallions. The first focused on Apollo Robbins. The second focused on Shuttle Robbins. While I own an Apollo 7 and an Apollo 9 Robbins, I don't per se collect them. I know almost nothing about shuttle flown Robbins.
Wow! That was a steal for one of these super rare medals. As you can see from the following link, https://historical.ha.com/c/search-...flown+gold+Robbins&ic4=KeywordSearch-A-071316, these typically sell in the Heritage Space Exploration auctions in the $20K+ range.
I saw those, but they were from more famous missions (like Apollo and Columbia). So I couldn’t conclude that this one would be valued anywhere near the previously sold examples. The final price still might have been a bargain (but without similar sales or some expert opinion, I really cannot tell for certain). The most expensive sale was the Neil Armstrong example that went for over $2 million. Based on that result, it appears that pedigrees matter quite a bit with this type of item.
To some degree I am sure the specific mission / astronaut plays a role in the value; e.g. - the $2M Armstrong example. However, within the successful shuttle missions I don't know one would have significant value over another. Granted, the first ever shuttle mission, the last ever shuttle mission, and the first flights of each of the space craft, like the present example of the first Atlantis flight, probably bring a little more. Certainly the gold medals bring more than the more plentiful silver medals. The link I provided lists twenty-one silver Robbins medals, all from the same Apollo mission. That mission had 303 silver medals struck; all flown. Sales over the nine years represented averaged $7,300, with higher dollars being commanded, typically, by the more recent sales and for those pieces graded / slabbed. Given the subject piece is gold, one of only nine flown, and is graded a relatively high MS-67, I would expect it to bring significantly more than what you indicate it sold for.
The little I know about space collecting. Apollo>Shuttle missions. My friend who is a space collector says most people are only interested in the Apollo missions.
In the right setting you might be correct that it would bring more. It appears like a coin auction was not the best place to offer that medal. Although it makes me wonder if the person who consigned it tried to sell it via Heritage first and they weren't interested?
Apollo mission Robbins bring SIGNIFICANTLY more money than Shuttle missions. As the saying goes, supply versus demand. There is a MUCH higher demand for Apollo mission pieces. While in general there are fewer flown Shuttle pieces per mission than Apollo missions, there were FAR MORE Shuttle missions than Apollo missions, e.g. 135 vs. 11. Also, only 9 of the Apollo missions have the cachet of having flown to the Moon.
Someone has a bit of a mark up on the originally posted Robbins... https://www.ebay.com/itm/NASA-Flown...866323?hash=item23c3dc8c53:g:6LcAAOSwj3ldWq6G
I'm not surprised to see it up for sale so soon and at a significant mark up. Now it'll be interesting to see if it sells....
I spoke to the purchaser of this piece from the auction noted above. He sold the piece for $4,500. Still sounds like a bargain to me. I'll leave it to the original poster as to whether the sale at Great Collections was a good price or not...
Sounds like he did well. It doesn’t appear to have sold on eBay, so the person must have found a buyer on another platform. The $4,500 is still well short of the other sales that were over $10k. And with so little data, this was a risk that I just didn’t see worth having $2,500 tied up for the period of time necessary to sell the medal.
He said it sold via his web site. Doubled his money in a week. I'd take that risk everyday! He must have known what he was doing. I'd guess he had dealt in these before.
It’s easier to say one would take the risk after the item sold. It could just as easily have sat around for a year and no one showed interest. It certainly helps though if the seller has a following and is known for selling similar items.
It's true that Shuttle Robbins Medal are not as desirable to collectors compared to Apollo, Skylab and ASTP versions. However, there are certain Shuttle missions that are. STS 1, foe example, the 1st launch of the Shuttle, the first 5 two man crw experiemntal missions, STS 41B the first untethered spacewlk, etc.
