A rare piece of space memorabilia--Buzz Aldrin's gold Robbins medallion, which flew with him on the Apollo 11 mission--is up for auction on the eBay web site until Thursday night.
The medallion is being auctioned off by Howard Weinberger, an avid space memorabilia collector who bought the gold coin from Aldrin within the last two years. A portion of the profits from the auction will go to the U.S. Space Camp, Weinberger has promised.
"It's an artifact I would love to have in the Space Museum, but I'm not financially at a point where I can afford to donate it," explained Weinberger. "The ultimate scenario would be that a Ron Howard or a Tom Hanks buys it and donates it to the museum."
As of 12:30 PM ET Wednesday, 36 people have bid on the medallion, a gold coin embossed with an eagle landing on the surface of the moon on the front and information about the Apollo 11 mission on the back. The top bid as of that time was $31,250. Some of those who have contacted Weinberger about the auction have said they might be willing to donate the medallion to a museum, he said.
But unless the bidding goes higher, the medallion will not be sold. A 'reserve' has been set on the medallion, meaning that the bidding must reach a certain level before it can be sold. The reserve is higher than the current top bid, but less than $100,000, Weinberger said.
Weinberger, who spent seven years researching the Robbins medallions, says the auction will have served its purpose of disseminating information about the medallions whether or not it is sold. "Nobody knew about them because they were private," he explained. "They were not done by NASA. One of the crew would work with the liaison at Robbins."
The gold medallions, which were created by the Robbins Company for the crews of each Apollo mission starting with Apollo 7, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz and the Space Shuttle STS missions. Silver medallions were also made for other people associated with the missions, said Weinberger, who has collected most of the silver medallions from the Apollo missions.
Bidding often doesn't pick up until the last day of an auction, so the medallion's status won't really be known until the last minute. But at least one person has already said she hopes the reserve limit won't be met. "My daughter's not thrilled with me," Weinberger said. "She doesn't want it sold."
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