Fifty years ago today, 3/23/65, the first manned Gemini spacecraft, Gemini 3, flew. The crew was commander Gus Grissom and pilot John Young. Up until that time all the significant space "Firsts" were owned by the Soviet Union... first man in space, first woman in space, first spacewalk, etc. etc. During the Gemini 3 mission the crew performed the first significant US space "First", the changing of the spacecraft's orbit. Up until that time the Soviet and US spacecraft could only change their attitude in space, e.g. rotate around their X, Y and Z axis. Gemini 3 moved from one orbital plane to another. Probably the most famous of all space flown coinage are the 100 dimes Gus Grissom flew with him on Liberty Bell 7. On landing on the ocean, that spacecraft filled with water and sank. Grissom was quite chastened by that experience, and called Gemini 3 Molly Brown. Furthermore he decided to bring much less coinage with him on Gemini 3, bringing basically only one coin of each denomination then in production (I am not sure whether that included a half dollar). After the mission while sitting together with John Young and Guenter Wendt (the so-called pad fuhrer... the head of the launch tower white room who basically made sure the spacecraft was ready to fly, and placed the crew in the ship prior to launch), Grissom was hammering GT-3 (the T stands for Titan, the rocket for the Gemini craft) into the dime with his knife. John Young said that he ought to give Wendt the dime and Grissom did so. Several years ago I bought the dime to add to the Liberty Bell 7 one I have. So, I have the only complete set of Grissom flown space dimes in existence. Here it is (you'll see the GT-3 just under the L in LIBERTY on the obverse):
What a neat story. Many believe that Deke Slayton the head of the astronaut office would have tapped Grissom for command of the first moon landing had he not been killed in the Apollo 1 fire. Would love to see your Liberty Bell 7 dime posted here as well. Wish I owned both dimes. Do you have enough documentation to get the dimes slabbed and labeled as space dimes, or something like that?
Yes I do have documentation for the dimes. I do not post the documentation to public forums so that potential scam artists can whomp up something to scam the unwary. Also, I try and get photos of the astronauts, or others, with pieces of my collection if at all possible. Here's a pic of my Liberty Bell 7 dime. All the ones that I have seen are 1961-D's. There are also Mercurys that flew on the spacecraft, but they were smuggled aboard the spacecraft by the technicians that worked on it and were never touched by Grissom. Most of the Mercurys that I have seen were in pretty tough shape after sitting on the ocean floor for roughly 40 years. FWIW, my LB7 dime was used as a plate coin for the most comprehensive history book about Liberty Bell 7.
Just a way cool thing to own. I had heard about the LB7 dimes, but this is the first time I have heard about the GT3 dime. These are both great items with tremendous history. Thanks for sharing with the forum!
