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Author
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Topic: Antiques Roadshow: Armstrong autographs
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denali414
Member Posts: 640
From: Raleigh, NC
Registered: Aug 2017
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posted 03-24-2020 10:29 AM
   
Last night on Antiques Roadshow (Season 24, Desert Botanical Garden, Hour 1), they had a set of ten Neil Armstrong signed moon photos. It was interesting that Armstrong signed all ten, as the person was a friend of his. |
MarylandSpace
Member Posts: 1352
From:
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted 03-24-2020 10:42 AM
Starts at about the 2 minute mark in the program. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 43464
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 03-24-2020 04:52 PM
The appraiser, Philip Weiss of Weiss Auctions, offers the owner the following advice: In terms of value, first of all, I would keep it as a set. You wouldn't want to break these up. I think it is worth far more as a collection and a set because they did ten of these photos. Weiss' appraisal comes out to $1,500 to $2,500 per photo, which is not out of line with the sale of Neil Armstrong's autograph and keeping them as a set does help with their provenance. But what would you do? In the past year, we have seen Armstrong's uninscribed autograph sell for upwards of $5,000 at auction. Would you break apart the set in light of that? (As an aside, Weiss makes the common mistake of describing the photo of Buzz Aldrin's boot and bootprint as belonging to Armstrong.) |
GACspaceguy
Member Posts: 2510
From: Guyton, GA
Registered: Jan 2006
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posted 03-24-2020 05:06 PM
I would say that based on the unique views and sharp signatures, selling them individually would bring more. As a set, the number of people looking to spend that money would be limited. Also, for an individual to buy that number of signed photos at once they would most likely want to resell and not keep them. Therefore they would be looking at profit margin rather than desirability. |
Mike Dixon
Member Posts: 1419
From: Kew, Victoria, Australia
Registered: May 2003
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posted 03-24-2020 05:29 PM
quote:
Originally posted by GACspaceguy:
I would say that based on the unique views and sharp signatures, selling them individually would bring more.
No question in my mind either. |
Rick Mulheirn
Member Posts: 4198
From: England
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 03-24-2020 05:29 PM
Living in the UK I suspect is the reason why I cannot seem to run the sequence. But from the still image the condition of the images does not look great so a premium for each would seem unlikely. I'd be tempted to sell them as a job lot if his intention is to sell of course. Were I the buyer I'd then sell on some of the pieces individually to recover a proportion of my investment. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 43464
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 03-24-2020 05:42 PM
The owner says these prints were purchased contemporary to the mission. He suggests they were made from the original negatives, though we know that not to be the case (the original flight film was only used to make duplicate negatives from which prints and other photo products were made). Some additional stills:  
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Jurg Bolli
Member Posts: 988
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 03-24-2020 10:15 PM
They also seem to have been framed, and the colors are somewhat faded.
I agree, very few people would buy 10 and then keep them together. |
spaced out
Member Posts: 3116
From: Paris, France
Registered: Aug 2003
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posted 03-25-2020 06:51 AM
Contrary to the advice given on the program I would say their value as a set is far lower than if sold individually.The fading certainly hurts their value but they are not bad overall. |
Blackarrow
Member Posts: 3153
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 03-25-2020 01:16 PM
Some items make an obvious set, but there is no linking feature here other than the obvious one of having all been signed by Neil Armstrong. In effect, it's a selection of Armstrong-signed pictures. Selling one of them, or two, would not change the selection in any meaningful way. (If you have 12 pictures, each signed by a different Moonwalker, THAT is a set.) |
Fra Mauro
Member Posts: 1615
From: Bethpage, N.Y.
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted 03-25-2020 02:24 PM
It's interesting that Armstrong signed photos of Aldrin on the lunar surface. I wonder if that changes the value at all. |
Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 2961
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 03-25-2020 03:23 PM
An interesting "set," but the photos are a bit faded, however, the Armstrong autographs are beautiful in my opinion and it really shouldn't matter too much if they sold separately or not.As to the first man signing the Aldrin images, that's not a problem at all to me. After all, Armstrong was the photographer, huh, since both moonwalkers were on the same mission together. Also, the appraise evaluation between $15-25K is not that unreasonable as some may think. Of course, if the photos were sold apart from each other, and based on their conditions, about $2K+ may/would be possible or more for a single, not inscribed, Apollo 11 lunar surface image. A nice "set" indeed.
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Mike Dixon
Member Posts: 1419
From: Kew, Victoria, Australia
Registered: May 2003
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posted 03-25-2020 04:32 PM
There are degrees of fading and these are, in my opinion, not good at all, be they sold individually or as a set. |
Blackarrow
Member Posts: 3153
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 03-25-2020 09:14 PM
Those pictures seem to have suffered the fate of most colour prints from the mid-1970s - they have turned an orangey-red colour. As a keen photographer in school, I took holiday pictures every year from the late 1960s and when I review the original prints I find that Kodak colour from the late 1960s is as vivid and faithful as the day the pictures were taken, but by around 1973 and particularly in the mid-late 1970s, every original colour print has gone orangey-red.Of course, modern scanners can restore the natural colour for digital collections, but that doesn't help if the selling point is the Armstrong autograph. |
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