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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Skyman, post: 8047338, member: 28299&quot;][USER=44633]@spirityoda[/USER]&nbsp;&nbsp; Space flown metal medallions are typically made up of a tiny fraction of an amount of space flown metal combined with a huge amount of &quot;filler&quot;.&nbsp; In particular the medallions that have Moon flown metal I would suspect that ~ 99.999999% is non-flown material.&nbsp; So, to have 25% flown metal is quite out of the ordinary.&nbsp; I noticed that the medallion comes from STS-40.&nbsp; STS, or in non-NASA speak, the Shuttle.&nbsp; The Shuttle was a huge f___ing beast compared to the capsules that came before (and after) it.&nbsp; Parts of the shuttle that had gotten worn out after multiple flights would be replaced, and I SUSPECT that it was a relatively large part that got replaced that was used as the &quot;flown&quot; material for your medallions.</p><p><br /></p><p>Coins (and medallions), huh?&nbsp; How about something a little bit different.&nbsp; Short snorters were originally created by fighter jocks in WWII.&nbsp; The basic idea was that a group of people would all sign some bill of each other&#039;s paper money.&nbsp; Thereafter, when these people got together again they would each have to show their signed bill.&nbsp; If they didn&#039;t have the signed bill, they would have to buy a drink for each of the people that still had their signed bill.&nbsp; This meant that the short snorter had to stay in the wallet, so oftentimes they got rather beat up.</p><p><br /></p><p>Needless to say, the early Mercury astronauts, all being test pilots, were well familiar with the custom.&nbsp; Probably the favorite non-astronaut of the Mercury group was Bill Dana, a comedian who had a skit called Jose Jimenez, the reluctant astronaut.&nbsp; You can find the skit on YouTube.&nbsp; Dana became such a favorite of the Mercury Seven that they unofficially called him the Mercury Eight.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s Bill Dana&#039;s short snorter.&nbsp; My best guess is that it was signed several different times, first by some Mercury 7 astronauts, then by two &quot;New Nine&quot; astronauts and finally one other, (knowing Al) probably just getting together with Dana in a bar in the latter 1960&#039;s.</p><p><br /></p><p>From top to bottom you have from the Mercury 7:&nbsp; John Glenn, Bill Lyon (Bill Dana&#039;s manager), Wally Schirra, Virgil Grissom, Leroy Cooper, Deke Slayton.&nbsp; Then the two &quot;New Nine&quot; astronauts, John Young and Pete Conrad, and finally Al Worden who was in the 1966 group of NASA astronauts.&nbsp; Note that the Grissom and Cooper signatures are both early examples as they didn&#039;t use their nicknames of Gus and Gordo.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1393149[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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