APOLLO 11 - Lot 1

APOLLO 11 Beta Cloth envelope featuring an Apollo 11 mission patch, handwritten by Michael Collins "Carried to the moon aboard Apollo XI. July 16-24 1969" and signed M. Collins. The patch bears the signatures of the mission's three astronauts: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Dimensions: 30 x 23 cm Provenance: During the Apollo missions, despite prohibitions, astronauts took various papers and objects with them as souvenirs on their return. These included envelopes made of beta cloth (a waterproof fabric also used to make Nasa suits). This example was collected by an American working with Swiss researchers from the University of Berne, under the direction of Dr. Johannes Geiss, on the development of the solar wind collector to be installed in the Sea of Tranquility. A friend of a teacher at the Ecole des Pervenches in Carouge (Switzerland), the envelope certified by Collins was to be offered to a brilliant student at the school with a passion for space. In order to obtain the signatures of the other two astronauts, it was sent back to the USA. It took some time to get them. In the end, all three Apollo 11 astronauts autographed the patch. But in the meantime, the child's father was transferred out of Switzerland, without being able to retrieve the envelope. The piece remained in the United States until it was sold to a French collector some twenty years ago. Expert : Nicolas Conreur Presented with an Apollo XI first-day envelope with a stamp authenticating a piece of kapton from the capsule "Columbia" and a 1/43° model of the LEM "Eagle" placed on a lunar surface. All in a 50x70 cm 3D frame.