You can start with the Eisenhower and Susan B. Anthony dollars that honor Apollo 11. Many nations issued Non-circulating legal tender and other commemoratives. 10,000 grains of silver (22.8 ounces) sent to the Moon were mixed with about a million ounces and sold to collectors. Lincoln Mint. Awarded to contractors at the Cape for work on Apollo. The medals were made from the booster stage that fell back. In addition, the USSR made these both to celebrate its achievements and to deflect people from collecting coins. Hundreds of types are known. Often, the price is stamped on the back to discourage trading at a profit. They usually cost about 15 kopeks, like 15 cents relatively but more like a cent-and-a-half in reality. They are very nicely enameled extremely non-precious metal, about a centimeter on a side giver or take. Yuri Garagin's flight, April 12, 1961. Venus-4 probe, in Russian "Venera", June 12, 1967.
One of the nicest collections of space-flown memorabilia that I've seen is owned by a member here, Sy aka Skyman. A lot of it is autographed by the astronauts. Chris
I collect early USSR space memorabilia myself, am currently looking for a Valentina Tereshkova gold medal that was struck in the 1970s. My collection started with a chance find on a city bus in the waning days of the USSR.
1 of my fathers golf buddies a doctor/scientist gave him this medal that has some 25% metal that was flown in space. dad gave it to me. I feel honored to have it. not sure what value it has ? sentimental value is huge. NFS. lol here's the pics:
Cool medals folks. The following two Apollo flight awareness medals have been posted in previous CT threads. These two medals include some material from the Apollo vehicles that flew the particular mission. (They have flown metal in them). These flight awareness medals were issued by NASA and were presented to personnel involved with the Apollo program. These previous CoinTalk links further describe space medals and space memorabilia. They include a lot of good photos & information my friends: http://www.cointalk.com/t153932/ http://www.cointalk.com/t39095/ http://www.cointalk.com/t2889/ http://www.cointalk.com/t213241/ http://www.cointalk.com/t134683/ http://www.cointalk.com/t158796/ http://www.cointalk.com/t206635/ http://www.cointalk.com/t11229/ Here is a privately issued medal commemorating the successful shuttle rocket. Like the flight awareness medals above, it was given to several contractors working on the project. However, it was not issued by NASA.
This is a small rocket engine from the Apollo project. Rockets of this type controlled the position of the command module.
Besides the aforementioned Susan B. Anthony and Eisenhower Dollars, and the several State Quarters that commemorate, I haven't any space-flown numismatic items or honorifics to share. However, I did want to note this is a great topic and I'm enjoying everyone's contributions! Thank you. -L
I generally am only on the US Coin forum, so I was unaware of this thread until Robec mentioned it to me. Some GREAT stuff everyone!!! Congratulations on the fun items!!! Space memorabilia has become my collecting focus over the last 7+ years. Until then I was unaware that you could buy the stuff. My collecting goal is to get at least one flown item from every Mercury, Gemini and Apollo (MGA) flight. As far as Apollo goes I mean up through Apollo 17, as I consider Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) as separate. At this point in time I've gotten something flown from every mission except the very first one, Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 Mercury flight. I have been lucky enough to meet many of the astronauts from the MGA era, including 11 of the 24 that went to the Moon. Over time, I've become focused on one mission in particular, Apollo 12, the second Manned landing on the Moon. I've also broadened my horizons a bit, as I got interested in collecting items from the Skylab project, particularly the 2nd mission, and from the shuttle era. Last month was the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 12 mission, and I created a thread in the US Coin Forum about it. It seems that you can only upload 20 images in a post, so I had to cut out some of the images that I posted on the NGC/PCGS boards. Still, as you can guess, with 20 pix, there are lots of items. Here's the link: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/sk...landing-caution-many-pix.255611/#post-2023633 Realistically, why don't you guys let me know what flights, and/or types of items, interest you, in this thread, and I'll see if I have anything in my collection that fits the bill, and if I do I'll post it here. Here's a pic of yours truly with Jim McDivitt, the Commander of Gemini 4 and Apollo 9. He brought several gold coins with him on Gemini 4, and here's one that I own.
Classic Apollo landing image! I too have one of those medals. I remember when the first astronaut fell on the moon. It was not as funny as the modern YouTube videos would have you think. The weight of the equipment on his back held him to the moon's surface like a turtle on its back. As I recall it turned very scary very quickly when the second astronaut tried to assist.....
Actually, there were no major issues with the Apollo astronauts falling down and their space suits. THE major issue with the space suits as far as a fall (aside from hoping the suit didn't puncture) was mobility, and that affected the leverage of the astronauts. Surprise at falling over, sometimes caused their voices to change, but even then it was fleeting. You can read the full transcripts of all Apollo EVAs online, and big chunks of the EVAs can be seen/heard online. The suit, called the A7L (the A7LB for latter missions), weighed approximately 76 pounds, or roughly 13 pounds on the Moon. With PLSS backpack etc., the whole configuration weighed about 200 pounds on Earth, which was roughly 33 pounds on the Moon. As you can see, even if you say the backpack was all of the extra ~ 20 pounds on the Moon, it was not a particularly onerous weight for a physically fit astronaut in his late 30's early 40's (Alan Shepard was BY FAR the oldest Moon walker at 48, the next closest was 41) to roll over onto his side with... even with the mobility issues of the suit. Thinking of A7L suits, here is an (unflown) hose connector for the A7L from my collection.
