Great Western Mint Niobium Apollo XI medal

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Author	Topic: Great Western Mint Niobium Apollo XI medal
oke Member Posts: 35 From: Registered: Jun 2003	posted 06-27-2003 06:33 PM I was wondering if you could help me find one of the Great Western Mint Niobium Apollo 11 commemorative coins. It was a commemorative made in 1994, and I guess only available to those who knew Wah Chang and received their newsletter. People at Wah Chang and The Great Western Mint (which is connected somehow to the Liberty Mint) do not have any leads as to who might have any extras for sale. Wah Chang is now making new "First in Flight" commemoratives and I got news that they might make a redesigned Apollo 11 coin for the 35th anniversary (for either the end of this year or sometime next year), but I wanted to track down one of the first niobium coins. (I got an email that the third "First in Flight" coin isn't about the Apollo 11 moon landing.)
oke Member Posts: 35 From: Registered: Jun 2003	posted 12-13-2012 03:54 PM (Nine years later...) So, anyway, I was able to find one of these coins from the person who was directly involved with its creation (he worked at Wah-Chang and with those at Liberty Mint/The Great Western Mint who minted the coin), so that's kind of a fun backstory for it:
Meademan Member Posts: 24 From: Gatwick, West Sussex, UK Registered: Oct 2012	posted 12-28-2012 06:13 PM What is Niobium? Is it special?
oke Member Posts: 35 From: Registered: Jun 2003	posted 01-03-2013 12:50 PM A niobium alloy (C-103) was used for some critical parts of the lunar lander, including the rocket engine skirt extensions. They chose to create this world's first niobium coin to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. So, it's not a flown medallion, or anything special like that, but it's one that might be less common or at least one which has an interesting backstory to it. Here are more details, in case folks want to read about the niobium coins.

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