- Title: Neil Armstrong's moon bag sells for $1.8 million at auction
- Date: 20th July 2017
- Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JULY 20, 2017) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF 'LUNAR SAMPLE RETURN BAG' BEING SOLD AT AUCTION BY SOTHEBY'S JOE DUNNING BAG ON DISPLAY (SOUNDBITE) (English) CASSANDRA HATTON, SOTHEBY'S VICE PRESIDENT AND SENIOR SPECIALIST BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS DEPARTMENT, SAYING: "For now, I can tell you that the buyer is an American private buyer. You may learn more later. But it was a very exciting moment. I am very excited about who bought it because I think that they are very much the right person to own something like this. They really appreciate the importance of the artifact. They are just thrilled to have it. And I'm thrilled that we are able to share it with the public and that we sold it today." BAG ON DISPLAY (SOUNDBITE) (English) CASSANDRA HATTON, SOTHEBY'S VICE PRESIDENT AND SENIOR SPECIALIST BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS DEPARTMENT, SAYING: "Well at the end of the day, it's an estimate. This is the kind of item that we've never sold before. So we put an estimate on their based on other things. But again at the end of the day, you never know what will happen at an auction. And it's the market that determines the value, and today it spoke and that's what it's worth now." VARIOUS OF SOTHEBY'S EXTERIOR
- Embargoed: 3rd August 2017 23:39
- Keywords: moon NASA auction space bag Neil Armstrong moon dust Apollo 11 Sotheby's
- Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES / MOON
- City: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES / MOON
- Country: USA
- Topics: Human Interest / Brights / Odd News,Science,Space Exploration
- Reuters ID: LVA0016QIXKK9
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A bag used by U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong to bring the first samples of moon dust back to Earth was sold to an anonymous bidder for $1.8 million (USD) at an auction in New York on Thursday (July 20) marking the 48th anniversary of the first moon landing.
During the auction, only a few bidders battled for the item. It sold at a hammer price of $1.5 million. Sotheby's auction fees were later added to the sale price.
The bag, which for years sat unidentified in a box at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, was bought by a person who bid by telephone and did not wish to be named publicly, auctioneer Sotheby's said.
"For now, I can tell you that the buyer is an American private buyer," said Sotheby's Vice President Cassandra Hatton.
"I am very excited about who bought it because I think that they are very much the right person to own something like this. They really appreciate the importance of the artifact. They are just thrilled to have it," she added.
Auctioneers had expected the bag to fetch between $2 million and $4 million.
"At the end of the day, it's an estimate," Hatton said. "It's the market that determines the value and today it spoke, and that's what it's worth now."
It was the highest-value item at an auction of moon memorabilia that included the Apollo 13 flight plan annotated by its crew, which sold for $275,000; a spacesuit worn by U.S. astronaut Gus Grissom, which sold for $43,750, and a famous image of Buzz Aldrin of Apollo 11 on the moon taken by Neil Armstrong, which went for $35,000.
After Armstrong and his Apollo 11 crew came home in July of 1969, the fate of the 12-inch by 8.5-inch (30-cm by 22-cm) bag labeled "Lunar Sample Return, was unknown for decades. After disappearing from the Johnson center, it surfaced in the garage of the manager of a Kansas museum, Max Ary, who was convicted of its theft in 2014, according to court records.
The bag was seized by the U.S. Marshals Service which put it up for auction three times, drawing no bids, until it was bought in 2015 for $995 by a Chicago-area attorney, Nancy Lee Carlson.
She sent the bag to NASA for authentication, and when tests revealed it was used by Armstrong and still had moon dust traces inside, the U.S. space agency decided to keep it.
Carlson successfully sued NASA to get the bag back, and the attention created by her legal challenge prompted many inquiries from potential buyers, according to Sotheby's. That led Carlson to decide to auction it again.
For All Moonkind, a non-profit formed to persuade the United Nations to adopt measures to preserve and protect the six Apollo lunar landing sites, criticized the decision to sell a piece of space history. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
