Apollo 11 Flag Swatch Goes Unsold At L.A. Auction 120
According to an Associated Press report, a "strip of fabric shorn from the flag planted on the moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts pulled in a top bid of $60000 at a Los Angeles auction, but didn't meet a minimum price so it won't be sold." Another $35,000 would have nabbed it, but — caveat emptor — the strip of fabric under discussion is one that never went to the moon itself, but rather was snipped off before the rest of the flag was stuffed into a tube for the mission.
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The (reputed) foreskin of Jesus was once considered priceless. It was, after all, the only piece of His body left on earth.
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Neil Armstrong autographed photo plus scrap (Score:4, Informative)
well that *is* a lot of money for a scrap of cloth.
Actually you get a little more than the scrap of cloth.
"Moser said he had Neil Armstrong sign a photo of the flag planted on the moon when the astronaut returned to Earth and he kept the picture and his rescued scrap of flag together in his NASA office until he retired in 1990. But after hanging onto the photo and flag-swatch assemblage all these years, he finally decided to put them up to auction.."
http://news.yahoo.com/swatch-moon-bound-flag-unsold-la-auction-032542272.html [yahoo.com]
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Sounds to me like he stole the cloth from his employer. Trash or not, it wasn't his property.
If I throw something in a waste receptacle deliberately, with the intention of getting rid of it permanently with no expectation of any return from its disposal (quite the opposite - I'm paying someone to take it off my hands), when do I voluntarily relinquish rights of ownership? Clearly the contents of a landfill are not the separate private property of all the people who ever threw something away that ended up there.
I am not a lawyer (perhaps one will chime in) but i strongly suspect that there is law re
Implicit consent to take scrap (Score:2)
In any case it sounded like his employer was quite aware of what he was doing, at the least there may have been implicit consent.
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I'm no lawyer but trash may not be free to grab until you put it out on the curb for pickup.
Also not a lawyer, but do read a lot about the law. What you're talking about is the common law concept of "conversion", which allows you to take somebody else's property without it being an offence if it is left in circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to believe it had been (intentionally) abandoned. Put in a bin and left for collection is one case (although if, say, you were to find a suit case with a large quantity of cash in there, you could be reasonably certain that it wasn't intentiona
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Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
It seems this swatch of fabric hasn't done at least two notable things. It would be interesting to keep track of the things it doesn't do in the future, too.
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It's the Ken Mattingly of cloth.
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"Huh, is there anything they had back in 69 they could have made a flag out of that COULD survive in such an environment?"
yes. a nice stainless steel plate "painted" with ceramic like the old 1920-1950 signs were. on the moon in the sun it would last 10,000 years.
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Huh, is there anything they had back in 69 they could have made a flag out of that COULD survive in such an environment?
There is one thing they had in 1969 that we do not have today. They could have used asbestos cloth,
Its illegal now, but was not then.
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I bet NASA could get away with making a little asbestos cloth if they saw a need for it. They get to play with plutonium, after all.
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Nope.
http://ibasecretariat.org/lka_us_congress.php [ibasecretariat.org]
http://www.epa.gov/asbestos/pubs/ban.html [epa.gov]
Go ahead, try to find evidence that there's an actual outright ban on asbestos in the US that would prevent the manufacture of said flag.
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It's like being proud of the child that never left home.
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Why would you want to own The most underachieving part of the flag
It's like being proud of the child that never left home.
If is the only child that is still alive... would this change your perspective? (you know, nylon isn't quite renowned for sustaining UV and cosmic radiation + over 100 degrees variation of temperature. I expect that the flag now on the moon is just dust now).
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I'd rather have the dust of the flag that went to the moon, then a piece of flag that never did.
The eternal question. Is it better to live life or just survive it?
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umm no. it wouldn't.
I'd rather have the dust of the flag that went to the moon, then a piece of flag that never did.
The eternal question. Is it better to live life or just survive it?
Now, here I can see a good reason for not wishing to have either of them. If you choose to live your life and unless you are one of the 3 that landed on the Moon, owning any of them doesn't bring any plus to your living. If you just survive through your life, owning any of them won't help you.
I guess owning memorabilia is for the inbetweeners (which have they vanity living for them).
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Do I get to stay in whatever I consider my physical and mental prime if I survive my life, or do I get to live the life of a struldbrug?
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If you're unlucky and the universe density parameter is less than or equal to 1, when the light from the last stars (long dead) stops reaching you, it will be very dark, cold, boring and lonely.
Who knows maybe eventually something might still happen - eternity is after all a very very long time. You might even tear chunks of flesh from yourself to form a new planet/star (assuming you regenerate
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Neither is photographic film, and yet some sheeple still believe all those moon pictures are real. [gets into flame-proof suit]
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Misleading summary ... (Score:3)
If it didn't go to the moon, who cares that it even went to auction?
The summary conveniently fails to mention that it comes with an autograph of the first man to set foot on the moon, one of the men who actually raised the flag on the moon. The autograph is on a photo of the flag raising so the flag scrap seems to be something to enhance the signature.
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The summary conveniently fails to mention that it comes with an autograph of the first man to set foot on the moon, one of the men who actually raised the flag on the moon. The autograph is on a photo of the flag raising so the flag scrap seems to be something to enhance the signature.
so.... for 100K you don't just get some fabric, you also get some ink on a piece of paper?
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I guess. You can get lunar astronaut's signatures for far less. I think I saw a photo of Eagle on the moon, with Buzz Aldrin's signature on it, available for $1700.
Armstrong autograph up to $27,000 (Score:2)
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Neil's Armstrong's autograph is worth more than Buzz Aldrin's autograph. Two reasons: Armstrong is much more reclusive (i.e. he stopped signing in the 1990s, so there is less supply), and Armstrong stepped on the moon first (so he is more of a celebrity, and there is more demand.)
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Heck nowadays a billion dollars is a bunch of electrons in some computer or some magnetic stuff on spinning disks.
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Who cares if it did go to the moon? Who cares if it was kissed by King Tut, worn as a hat by Isaac Newton, and served as a swaddling cloth for the young Abe Lincoln?
Unless there are unanswered scientific or historical questions the artifact may shed light on, it doesn't have any real value apart from our own invented sentimentalism. A sheerly practical person may then not care about it. But I don't particularly see why a strip of the flag that went to the moon would be more valuable for having been taken
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Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Funny)
Sheer lunacy!
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Sheer lunacy!
Nice one!
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Even if it did go to the moon, I don't see why anyone would care. Placing a value on objects simply because of who owned them or where they were at a point in history is just as absurd as placing a value on someone's "autograph". Unless a signature is attached to a fat check directly cashable to me, then I don't see what the hell I care about some ink on a piece of paper.
I met Buzz Aldrin when I was a kid. That was awesome. It wouldn't have been made more awesome by getting an autograph from him or by plant
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Really? (Score:1)
Somebody wouldn't settle for less than $100K for a scrap of cloth that almost was sent to the moon?
I'll settle for a much more reasonable $10K for a scrap of cloth from underwear resembling the underwear worn by Neil Armstrong.
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Somebody wouldn't settle for less than $100K for a scrap of cloth that almost was sent to the moon?
I'll settle for a much more reasonable $10K for a scrap of cloth from underwear resembling the underwear worn by Neil Armstrong.
Just make sure is is authentically autographed before and you may find buyers.
A quote from the NY times [nytimes.com] FA:
“They were throwing it all in the trash,” Mr. Moser recalled of the remnants in a recent interview, “so I picked it up out of the trash can, mounted it and had Neil Armstrong sign it.”
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Give me a second....yeah, it's signed.
I can also rub it in some trash too. Hell, for $15K, I'll even fly down to Cape Canaveral and rub it in some trash from NASA.
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"It was put in the trash can and I just took it out and said, `I'm going to keep that,'" he said.
Moser said he had Neil Armstrong sign a photo of the flag planted on the moon when the astronaut returned to Earth and he kept the picture and his rescued scrap of flag together in his NASA office until he retired in 1990.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yay for consistency in the media. NPR reports [npr.org]
Ah, NPR, the intellectual arm of American media that reports such gems as
to hold the banner out straight on the gravity-free moon.
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But...but...quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur!
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"Buyer beware" is just good, if not cheesy advice. "Caveat emptor" refers to an actual set of laws as well as sounding cooler. You do realize that you complained about something sounding smart on a website that's "news for nerds". Maybe this [foxnews.com] is more your speed.
I'd pay the asking price (Score:4, Funny)
For Auction: Lady Gaga's Underwear (Score:5, Funny)
For Sale: Lady Gaga's Underwear
Condition: Slightly unused
Description: These underwear were owned by Gaga herself but never worn. It is not clear if she actually ever touched them or even knew she bought them. But they were hers for sure.
Bidding starts at $1000
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$95,000 reserve.
Snipped off right before... (Score:1)
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Geeze, not this shit again.
It was not in Hollywood, it was in Groom Lake, Nevada! How many more times does it have to be said?
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Just like the 1000's of flags... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually its from the guy who made the moon flag (Score:5, Informative)
Just like the 1000's of flags that came off the same roll of fabric. This little bit is also just a bit of that roll that stayed behind. Sure, it has a sig, but it could just as well be another flag that was signed. Guess it is worth what a fool will pay for it.
Actually this scrap comes from the guy who was in charge of creating the moon flag apparatus. So the scrap does have a pretty good paper trail as coming from the flag that made it to the moon.
"Mr. Moser, then a 30-year-old mechanical engineer, was put in charge of designing a flag mechanism that could not only fit into the lunar module and survive the flight, but also make the flag appear to fly on the windless moon. His solution involved two sections of a staff, a telescoping tube and a nylon flag bought at a local housing goods store (Sears, he thinks). But in order for the flag to fit the staff, its edges needed to be trimmed. “They were throwing it all in the trash,” Mr. Moser recalled of the remnants in a recent interview, “so I picked it up out of the trash can, mounted it and had Neil Armstrong sign it.” Forty-two years later, Mr. Moser is auctioning off those flag remnants."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/science/space/10moon.html [nytimes.com]
Would be different if it were a chunk of the wall. (Score:1)
If this was a chunk of the Berlin-wall, it might fetch a different price for starters, but would probably be sold due to the amount of frantic collectors for cold war memorabilia. This might just show us that, at this point in time, we just
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Maybe in another 50 years that strip of flag will fetch (equivalent of the time) a couple of million dollars (or whatever currency is in use at the time).
Oh it will. Oh yes, it will. When sold as scrap nylon.
(just look at inflation).
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If it was a chunk of the Berlin Wall, it'd be fucking worthless. The Berlin Wall was an extremely large thing and was broken into many pieces that are sold all over the world. Unless it's a very large piece of the wall (like, at least the size of a person) and it is covered with some of the known graffiti that was popular on the wall, then a chunk of the Berlin Wall is worth about as much as a chunk of any other rock laying around. The only market for pieces of the Berlin Wall today are in selling to sucker
Next up... (Score:3)
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Another piece of cloth that was made from material that was grown on the same field as the one that produced the material for the flag! Bid starts at $10000
Do they grow nylon in the fields now?
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If I could afford it ... (Score:3)
If I could afford it, hell, why not?
This is a piece of the flag that went up for the first moon landing. I don't care if it is the flag of another nation. I find it presumptuous to devalue the remnant because it never went to the moon. Heck, it's presumptuous to think that many people will ever own anything that actually went to the moon. It is even more absurd to assume that someone would buy it for its future selling price. The fact remains that it was part of humanities first foray to another planet. (And the Earth-Moon system is essentially a double planet system.) It is an important piece of history that says more about our future than almost any artifact dug out of the soil of our home planet.
To the nay-sayer's: just stuff it. You clearly have no appreciation of how important this achievement was. And it was unbelievably important since, within a few decades of achieving heavier than air flight, we managed to reach another world!
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I don't know about anyone else, but I find it amusing that you apparently find it absurd to devalue the garbage related to the moon shot. If someone finds Neil Armstrong's discarded urine from his physical testing prior to the flight, should we value that too? I mean "it was part of humanities first foray to another planet. [sic]" Think of how much was wasted by letting booster stages burn up in the atmosphere! We should sue someone for letting those incredible pieces of history burn up! OMG!
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Going to the moon was an amazing achievement. Being a flag is not.
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To the neigh-sayer's: just stuff it. You clearly have no appreciation of how important this achievement was. And it was unbelievably important since, within a few decades of achieving heavier than air flight, we managed to reach another world!
FTFY.
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What have you got against horses?!?
Blah pointless blah blah just a scrap of nylon (Score:2)
On an objective scale, nothing bigger than a subatomic particle has any intrinsic value.
Going to the moon was essentially pointless, frivolous and meaningless.
And yet millions of people around the world watched it, and wept for joy because for one brief moment, our reach did not exceed our grasp, and we touched the heavens.
If the thought of having a connection to that astonishing moment - and the men involved in it, the frail apes who walked on another planet - doesn't embiggen your soul, then honestl
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Sorry, I don't worship celebrities, I worship the science.
The science that's had its funding cut so it can't even replicate what was achieved over 40 years ago, and won't be able to do it again for decades. I think $100,000 would be better spent on something like the X-Prize or just donating it to a scientific project than owning something vaguely (very vaguely) associated with the past glories of a single nation.
It's why I'm much happier now that ESA is actually starting to lead the game rather than NASA
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So to have a connection to a stunning event, I need to own a piece of material that was present for it. Uh. Okay.
The Real Stuff (Score:2)
I have a piece of Apollo11 in my front room (Score:1)
More interesting (Score:1)
the other flag (Score:2)
How much for a swatch of the MTV flag they planted on the moon?
(It's been seen more times on TV.)
Worthless (Score:2)
If it never made it to the moon it is just another worthless scrap piece of fabric; the whole point of owning space memorabilia is to have something that actually went into space or came from space; and not some discarded scrap of fabric that they cut out because the flag did not fit on the flag holding apparatus. Honestly it sounds like the guys who has this scrap fabric spin a snake oil salesman tale about it an try to get some dumba$$ to buy it.
And who does this cloth belong to, exactly? (Score:2)
This guy was a US Government employee at the time, right? And the flag was paid for by NASA, right?
So what the HELL is he doing with it? Oh ... yeah, he stole it. Right, I missed that part, doh.
So he's selling stolen US Gummint property? That's clever of him.
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Perfectly legal - the statute of limitations is LONG over. So yes, it IS clever of him.
Flag desecration... (Score:2)
So somebody desecrated the flag and wants to profit from it? The worst part is that the flag flying on the moon is a desecrated one! WTF?
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They had to trim it to get it to fit in the lunar lander...
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