Posts: 2212
From: Worcestershire, England, UK.
Registered: Apr 2008

posted 12-20-2011 09:12 AM               

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Gene Cernan signed my copy of his book. All it cost me was two-way postage from the UK!

A great addition to my signed books.

Posts: 318
From: West Sussex, England
Registered: Jan 2011

Posts: 867
From: CA.
Registered: Jan 2011

Posts: 62
From: Belgium
Registered: Dec 2002

Posts: 4167
From: England
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 12-23-2011 05:18 PM              

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Completely slipped my mind...

Went looking for a good early Hardcover printing of The All-American Boys on Amazon this year. Paid $12.

When it showed up it had Walter Cunningham's uninscribed signature.

Posts: 2896
From: Titusville, FL USA
Registered: Feb 2005

Posts: 719
From: Albany, Oregon
Registered: Jul 2006

Posts: 2176
From: West Jordan, Utah USA
Registered: Dec 1999

Posts: 573
From: Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 12-24-2011 06:10 PM               

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Two Ted Freeman signed cards and two Charlie Bassett signed cards for a total of $50 USD buy it now on ebay during the year.

I did send the seller some extra money after buying them.

Posts: 390
From: Yeovil, England
Registered: Oct 2004

posted 12-24-2011 07:24 PM               

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My own bargin would be when I took my copy of Mike Mullane's Riding Rockets to the Astronaut Experiences I attended and had it signed by not only its author but by John Blaha, Rick Searfoss, Bruce Melnick, Bob Springer and Sam Durrance.

Plus I picked up a Deke Slayton signed cover for £12.50 and just the other day I won a Max Faget signed card from eBay for just £5, so not bad.

Posts: 318
From: Kiel, Germany
Registered: Mar 2005

Posts: 1634
From: Smithfield, Me, USA
Registered: Mar 2005

Posts: 176
From: Vienna, Austria
Registered: Oct 2010

posted 01-03-2012 02:30 PM               

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John Glenn´s autograph early in the year! He signed a STS-95 photo for me and personalized it to me. I could not believe it, as I held the autograph in my hands! Thank you so much, Senator Col. Glenn!

Later in the year I wrote to our only Austrian cosmonaut Franz Viehböck, who lived on space station MIR. He sent me a nice autographed photo in his Russian space suit. I framed the photo together with an AustroMir patch (AustroMir was the only Austrian space program ever), I bought on eBay. This means much to me as an Austrian...

Posts: 396
From: Houston, TX, USA
Registered: Jan 2012

posted 01-19-2012 07:28 AM               

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I miss the good old days when for 8 cents, I could send a letter to any astronaut at NASA and 3 months later I would receive an autographed litho. The only ones who autopened me back were Shepard and Young. I saw both of them (on different occasions) a few years later in person, but I didn't have any photo for them to sign.

Lucky for me, I saved all those lithos. About 5 years ago, I was looking at them and I wondered what they were worth. I looked them up online and found out that people were selling autographed photos of almost every astronaut. That's when I decided to complete my set. The first 20 autographs were free, the rest have cost me a small house in Beverly Hills.

Speaking of Young, one of the biggest thrills of my life was when I was hauling air freight in the Houston area back in the 70's. One of my daily stops was NASA. One day I picked up John Young's Apollo 16 flight suit. After leaving the premises, I looked at the box, it was not locked. I pulled over on one of the remote roads that existed at the time and opened the box. His helmet was sitting on top. I put it on for about a half a second. My heart was pounding so hard I had to take it off. I wasn't clostrophobic, I was afraid a cop would see me and haul me off to jail. It took all the will power I could muster to get that container to the airport. I really wanted to take it to Alaska, where nobody would ever find me.

Posts: 1310
From: Staten Island, New York USA
Registered: Nov 2007

Posts: 318
From: West Sussex, England
Registered: Jan 2011

posted 01-20-2012 05:10 PM               

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Well, 2012 has got off to a good start. I hope.

There I am in Buenos Aires, of all places, and I spot a rough looking Earthrise NASA photo on the wall of a shop. What really excited me was to see it was inscribed and signed by Bill Anders with an Apollo 8 mission added. If it's genuine, and I think it is, I'm pleased with my $25 spend.

Posts: 591
From: Cabot, Arkansas, USA
Registered: Sep 2010

Posts: 3218
From: MA, USA
Registered: Sep 2002

Posts: 35
From: Oberhausen, Germany
Registered: Jan 2012

Posts: 310
From: Chillicothe, Ohio, usa
Registered: Mar 2004

Posts: 2169
From: McKinney TX (USA)
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 02-09-2012 12:41 PM               

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Nice package in the mail today. I've been looking for a signed Eisele litho or photo for my collection, but didn't want to pay as much as those I have seen offered for sale -- until I found this one:

Close up of the signature:

Got it for $30, buy it now on eBay. And, it's an official NASA litho with the purple lettering on the reverse.

Posts: 3110
From: Paris, France
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 02-10-2012 06:28 AM               

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In case you think you were the first person to see that Eisele buy-it-now bargain on eBay... you weren't.

I tried to buy it, and I'm sure many other European collectors did likewise, but the seller, in his or her infinite wisdom, had put a block both on overseas bidders and on receiving messages from those overseas.

The result was that plenty of space collectors in Europe saw the item and tried to buy it only to be blocked, then tried to contact the seller to ask them to open the auction to overseas bidders only to find they were blocked again.

Pretty frustrating to see the item sitting there in your watch list until nearly 3 hours later some lucky US-based collector stumbles out of bed, yawns, makes breakfast, reads the paper, yawns again, turns on the computer, logs into ebay, says "Yipee!" and buys it, but I'm not bitter. No siree. Grrrr...

Posts: 1966
From: Atlanta, GA
Registered: Feb 2007

Posts: 3110
From: Paris, France
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 02-10-2012 08:39 AM               

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quote:

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Originally posted by garymilgrom:
spacedout: There are many folks on this forum who will help a European friend in situations like this. Feel free to ask around next time.

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True, but the problem was it was listed at 4am PST (mid-day here in Europe). Not many of our American cousins up and about at that time, which is why it didn't sell until 3 hours later.

Posts: 2169
From: McKinney TX (USA)
Registered: Aug 2005

Posts: 48
From: Houston, Texas
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 02-10-2012 09:14 AM            

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So, I have an interesting story…

A couple of weeks ago, a co-worker showed me his copy of Al Bean’s 1998 book, “Apollo: An Eyewitness Account” and I found it to be an amazing presentation of most of his artwork up to that point. I was impressed enough that I went onto Amazon last week to find a nice of copy of it for myself. I just wanted to find a used copy of it in decent condition and sure enough I found a copy that was listed as “Like New” for $17.00 so I went ahead and ordered it.

Even though I found out that Al Bean had signed a number of limited edition copies of the book that now sells for over a hundred dollars, I really just wanted to find an affordable, unsigned book since I thought I might have an opportunity to get him to sign it in person one day.

Well, the book arrived this week and sure enough it was in immaculate condition. The dust jacket even had a clear cover to protect it and the pages were so crisp that it seemed the book had hardly ever been opened. I opened up the book to the title page where Al typically signs and surprisingly it had a personalized note already written on it and sure enough, below that was Al Bean’s signature in blue ink!

What was even more interesting though, was the notation:

“To a dedicated and accomplished astronaut. It was a pleasure working with you!”

But here’s the crazy part… Below Al Bean’s signature, there are two more signatures – of Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon!! All in the same blue, fine-tipped Sharpie ink.

Apparently this book was originally given to one of Al’s fellow Apollo astronauts in 1998 and he had Pete and Dick sign the book as well since a painting of the Apollo 12 crew is on the cover. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how or why this ended up for sale on Amazon through a used book retailer! Just amazing!

So there’s my best bargain autograph story of, well probably my lifetime. A great book about Al’s artwork that was once owned by an Apollo astronaut, and is signed by the Apollo 12 crew…all for $17.00!

Posts: 591
From: Cabot, Arkansas, USA
Registered: Sep 2010

posted 02-22-2012 10:12 PM               

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I recently ran across an autographed Code 3 Collectibles' Apollo command module model re-issue, signed by Charlie Duke on, of all places, Amazon. It stated the glass case was cracked but otherwise the model and autograph were mint... All for $115!

I bought it expecting it to be just the capsule, but it turned out to be a mint signed Apollo capsule with General Duke's signature in beautiful silver on the base.

Now if I could just find a new hatch for my Mercury capsule.

Posts: 1673
From: Birmingham AL
Registered: Aug 2010