1969 Signed Moon Landing Newswires
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GUEST:
During the 1960s and '70s, I worked at the White House during the President Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations. I worked in the White House Situation Room. And what I have here are the first news wire reports received in the Situation Room that told about the landing on the moon in July of 1969. I timestamped them with the White House Situation Room timestamp, and sometime later then they were taken up to President Nixon's secretary, and she was kind enough to take them in and have two of them autographed for me. I had those at home, but ten years later, I was still working in the Situation Room, and I noticed that on the 20th of July of '79, President Carter was going to be meeting with the three original astronauts. And they were going to be having a ten-year commemoration in the Rose Garden of the White House. And so as they came in, I had the chance to talk with each one of them, and after a couple of minutes conversation, I'd ask them to sign the documents. All three astronauts signed these two, and Neil Armstrong was the only one to sign that third one.
APPRAISER:
This picture is wonderful. This is probably the most scowly I've ever seen all the astronauts together. (laughing) And here we have President Jimmy Carter, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins. You've got Neil Armstrong's signature here, and again it talks about his stepping off the footpad of the Eagle moon lander to the surface of the moon. And it's timestamped 10:56 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time. The date on this: July 20, 10:56. The signatures are wonderful. They're perfectly clear of all three astronauts from the Apollo 11 program. Wonderful signature of Richard Nixon. Unfortunately, this one has been damaged by water.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
So... and it's personalized. Richard Nixon's signature is kind of blurry. Buzz Aldrin's is pretty good, but Collins' and Neil Armstrong's signature kind of wash away a little bit.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
So that affects the value greatly on that particular one. But for the entire collection, I would give a conservative auction estimate of $24,000 to $34,000.
GUEST:
Hmm. Okay.
APPRAISER:
To break it down, this particular one is $10,000 to $15,000.
GUEST:
Uh-huh.
APPRAISER:
Because of the damage on this piece, the $8,000 to $10,000.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And this one would be $6,000 to $9,000 on its own.
GUEST:
Hmm.
APPRAISER:
And the photo itself is about a $20 photo.
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