This 1802 Mexico mint 8 Reales is my most 'traveled' coin, I know for a fact the journeys it took, minted in Mexico, shipped from the Acapulco's port to the Philippines across the Pacific via the Manila galleon, traded in China evident from all the oriental chopmarks, and who knows where this coin has been in the meantime before traveling to Spain, where I bought this coin from a seller in Madrid(online), which then flew to me in Australia!
That is a pretty nice map you've created there, but I'm willing to bet that there will be someone who can beat that by tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of miles. I wonder if @Skyman knows of any "Flown Coins" from one of the NASA projects?
I'm just wondering how much this 1909 vdb penny sitting on Mars, covered in Martian dust will worth if it ever was brought back to Earth!
This was a pocket piece of my Wife's Grandfather and then her Father. They were both merchant seamen travelling the worlds seas and oceans with this on their person for a combined total of about 50 years. What the total number of miles travelled between them was, I have no idea but would be in the hundreds of thousands
I have a flown philatelic cover from the last Challenger mission BEFORE it blew up. At the time (pre-order sales), the Post Office charged $14.99. It's worth a lot more now. It came in a folder, this is the inside showing the cover that was actually flown (it is serialized on the back). I still have the original envelope it was mailed in, too.
@JayAg47 Fun piece and detective story! @cpm9ball @Randy Abercrombie To the best of my knowledge the most traveled coin would actually be a twofer. Two Washington 50 State quarters; one of Florida to represent Kennedy Space Center, where the spacecraft was launched, and one of Maryland to represent Goddard Space Flight Center, which controlled (is controlling) the spacecraft during it's flight. The two coins were used as weights to help balance the spacecraft. Oh, and the spacecraft you ask, what is it, and where might it be? It is the probe New Horizons, which imaged Pluto in July 2015. It is currently roughly 4.7 BILLION miles from Earth, and will continue traveling until it hits something or is sucked into some gravity well, or potentially will continue onward and outward for eternity. My most traveled coin flew on Gemini 4, traveling just over 1,600,000 miles in just over 4 days.
I'm guessing McDivitt didn't ask for a grade. After all the coin is common date, and believe me, you're not paying for the grade. Here are close up images of the coin.
Wow! That's awesome! Sy, I vaguely recall a story about some unauthorized food that made its way on a NASA mission. Has there ever been some unauthorized coins that were stowed aboard a flight?
Yeah, a corned beef sandwich aboard Gemini 3. Unauthorized coins have most likely been stowed aboard all sorts of spacecraft. They got put into the spacecraft by the workers who worked on the spacecraft. One would assume they got taken out when the craft was "safed" after the landing, e.g. any remaining liquids taken out, systems shut down etc. etc. Liberty Bell 7 (which sank after splashdown) was recovered from the ocean bottom 35ish years after it sank. When it was opened up for restoration it was found to have a bunch of Mercury and Roosevelt dimes in it (maybe 40ish?). These were NOT Grissom's dimes, so clearly they were unauthorized.