posted 05-21-2024 09:51 PM               

Not sure where to start, but I'd love to start up a conversation and perhaps, down the road, trades in items (or even just trades in stories!) with any fellow serious John Glenn collectors.

If folks send me e-mails, I can give you an idea of the scope of my collection. I’ve tried to collect bits and pieces from each "era" of his life (earliest is a 1944 book on Marine Corp aviation). A few of his WWII era books and couple of signed $1 silver certificates.

Over the years, I’ve stumbled upon some humble and/or humorous early autographs/letters. At his homecoming parade at New Concord, Ohio, on March 3, 1962, he met with all of his old high school teachers (including Hartford Steele). They took a great group photo I had never seen anywhere else before (then or now). Just one for each of the teachers, I guess. His biology teacher (Ada Doris Cain) lived to be 98 and just passed away in 1996. Anyway, in going through her house/estate, they found the mementos from that night, along with the large photo and a great handwritten note from that day wherein Glenn wrote to his former teacher saying "See what you started with all that Biology!!" Another is a great cheeky letter (one month before his Friendship 7 take off) he wrote to someone who sent him a gag gift of a passport for the moon. Glenn wrote back saying "thanks for the passport to the Moon, looks like I'm all set now!"

Finally, a neat two page handwritten letter written to a lady who described herself as "a crazy lady from Bethlehem, PA" (along with her actual name). She complained of having been diagnosed with "the astronaut's disease—labyrinthitis." In response, Glenn wrote an incredibly heartwarming and compassionate letter to this lady, discussing his own experience with Mueniere Syndrome (he put "sp?" after using that term), and describing the pain and agony he experienced with his fall and ear injury. He ended the letter with "I know the agonies you go through, but hope you get full recovery as I did." Signed by Glenn and dated Nov 2, 1973, The whole letter in his cursive handwriting.

That was obviously the type of guy he was. A gentleman and an American hero — but not too big to respond to a self described "crazy lady from Bethlehem, PA."

So, if there are any other serious Glenn collectors, I'd really love to hear from you. I can't be the only one, right?! I'd love to hear from you via a post here or by e-mail.

Sorry for the long post, but I'm really excited to hear from fellow serious collectors — even if just to marvel in each other's collections, and nothing more. I'd also like to hear people's take on those early signed silver certificates.

posted 05-22-2024 09:13 AM               

Col John "Shorty" Powers alleged that around 200 $1 and $2 bills in the capsule, so Glenn could sign and give to supporters and NASA techs afterwards. Tons of newspapers screamed with headlines like "'200 dollar bills that travelled with Glenn," "Glenn's capsule carried smuggled dollar bills," "Space Craft Packed with Contraband Dollars," "Glenn's Craft Had Contraband Cargo of Bucks," and "Dollars in Capsule Draw Official Censure." I've got a scrapbook full of these articles.

Quoting from one fairly long article:

Lt. Col. John A 'Shorty' Powers told newsmen that something like 200 $1 bills were hidden aboard astronaut John Glenn Jr's spacecraft by the launch crew before Glenn's three-orbit flight. Powers on Monday showed the newsmen one of the bills on which he was collecting signatures from all the astronauts...

Then, on March 8 or 9, NASA sent a memo to Powers, Glenn, Slayton (then next in line for a flight before getting bumped) saying basically "no more currency in the capsules." That memo is in the John Glenn archives at OSU. By that time, NASA also said (I think in the same memo) that only about 83 bills remained or were in the capsule. Then Glenn signed certificates for each bill saying this represented one of the bills on board and no more. You can see an example of one of these signed certificates on eBay right now for a lot (let's say, much more than a dollar!).

I’ve been curious whether it was only 83 $1 and $2 dollar bills instead of 200 claimed by Shorty Powers. The story of the dollar bills aboard Friendship 7 was a story quickly quelled by NASA within a couple of weeks after splashdown, but I think a very fascinating one!

posted 05-22-2024 04:24 PM               

Count me in for sure when it comes to John Glenn being one of my all-time favorite astronauts. While I never met the Mercury astronaut-turned-US Senator-and later turned shuttle astronaut until the 1970's, our paths were able to meet on several occasions and in spending quality time together during his visits to the Space Coast and Central Florida.

Regarding the flown monetary items aboard Glenn's MA-6/Friendship 7 spacecraft, in brief, there had been 52 American silver certificate dollar bills, mostly of the $1 currently level, that had been recorded after the flight. Each bill had been mounted on a special certificate and signed by Glenn and his backup pilot Scott Carpenter at the bottom right side. For each flown bill there was a COA issued that recorded their serial numbers with Glenn also signing each bill "JHGlenn, Jr." above the serial number on the bottom left side.

Before launch on our nation's first manned orbital spaceflight, Guenter Wendt and his closeout crew placed all of the bills together in a heatshrink tubing that had been carefully attached to a wiring bundle above the main conical heat shield area while inside the pilot's cabin behind him. After the mission, the currency bills were mostly given away to McDonnell spacecraft team members as mementoes of such a historical feat.

posted 05-22-2024 04:58 PM               

Quick question for you. Do you think Shorty Powers was just guesstimating when he said that 200 $1 bills were stashed on board, got the number wrong, and was referring instead to the 80-odd $1 and $2 dollar bills that were certified as you have described? Or could there have been other ones that escaped certification for one reason or another?

Reason I ask is one of the two bills I have was signed by Glenn exactly as you have described (but minus the COA), and given to an RCA technician on Grand Turk Island. Along with the bill were photos of Glenn, LBJ and six of the seven astronauts having breakfast on the island and photos of Friendship 7 being loaded onto a cargo plane. I suppose Glenn could have just taken a bill out of his wallet for the RCA tech at the mess hall during breakfast a day or two later too! But the signature and location definitely matches all the others I’ve seen.

posted 05-22-2024 06:42 PM               

If my memory is correct, though, Friendship 7 didn't get back to the Cape until the next couple of days. Once recovered at sea, the capsule was delivered to Grand Turk Island by a MA-6 Navy recovery force fleet ship (USS Randolph). From there after a quick DOD and NASA safety inspection, it was loaded on an Air Force transport flight back to Florida's launch base.

posted 05-22-2024 10:54 PM               

The memo does read to me a bit like NASA damage control. At one point in the memo, the memo stated that the money "was secured in a manner safe for flight. In fact, it was more secure than some of the necessary equipment the Astronaut took with him." Then a few lines later, in direct response to congressional concerns reported in the papers, the memo continues: "There was absolutely no damage of jamming delicate equipment as stated in the news articles." And certainly much less currency listed in the memo than Powers had claimed (probably erroneously).

For me, one of the stranger lines in the memo is at the end. Colonel John "Shorty" Powers started the controversy by holding up a dollar bill at a press conference that he said was in the capsule and said he was in the process of collecting signatures of the various astronauts on it. He was specifically copied on this memo (along with Glenn, Slayton, Gilruth, Williams, and Preston), and then at the very end of the memo, there is this statement: "Since that time (the time of money extraction at Cape Canaveral), it has been kept intact and at the present time it is in the Astronaut Quarters, Hanger S, where it awaits Col. Glenn's signature. The dollar bill shown to the press by Col. Powers was not aboard the capsule and was given to him for autographs by a man who failed to get his dollar aboard the capsule before flight." Probably true, but a strange sentence to include at the end, with Powers himself copied on the memo.

Taking the NASA memo as true, I guess Glenn signed other silver certificates in the aftermath of the flight, but that were not on the flight itself. Still cool, in my book, but not like the certifiable flown bills like in your collection.

posted 05-23-2024 12:54 PM               

And often the pedestrian ones are the best. I heard a great one from someone who unexpectedly saw him at Disney World. The story as told by a Disney World visitor was that Senator Glenn was spotted sitting in a Disney restaurant (with Annie) and wearing a sweater with a big picture of Mickey Mouse on the front of it (it takes a man sure of himself to pull off that look).