Armstrong's Gold Apollo 11 Robbins Medallion sets new record

SkyMan

From Apollo 7 forward, each crew of a US manned space mission has brought Robbins medallions with them. The Robbins medallions are a metallic representation of the mission patch. They are normally a little larger than a half dollar. As you might expect, different mission's Robbins medallions are worth different amounts of money. It's both a function of how many Robbins medallions were carried on the flight, and how "sexy"/important the flight was.

During the Apollo era the number of flown Robbins silver medallions ranged from 80 for Apollo 17 to 450 for Apollo 11. Even though the number of Apollo 11's medallions is by far the largest (Apollo 13 is the second most common at 404, and Apollo 9 is the third most common at 350), it is also the second or third most expensive of the Apollo Robbins medallions, generally with a price in the $25,000 - $35,000 range depending on quality etc. It is believed that all the flown silver medallions were flown in Earth orbit or Lunar orbit depending on the specific mission.

Each of the Apollo crews also brought along a few gold medallions for the crew and their wives. Apollo 7 is the most common with 7 gold medallions. Three missions; Apollo's 8, 9 and 11 only brought 3 gold medallions each, one for each crew member. It is believed that the gold medallions that flew on lunar landing missions all flew in their assorted LMs to the lunar surface.

Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 gold Robbins medallion just went up for auction today, July 16, at Heritage. It just went for $2,055,000. That is over 20 times what the next most expensive Robbins medallion (an Apollo 13 gold one) went for. Clearly only one person was going to win it, and obviously there were multiple people bidding on it. I wonder at what point it winnowed down to 2 people with big checkbooks duking it out.

Here's a picture from Heritage of the obverse of the Robbins.

mannie gray

Thanks for the post, @SkyMan .

Zoins

Amazing result. Now that we have medals in the millions, do we need to keep track of the 10 most expensive medals of all time?

Here's the link:

https://historical.ha.com/itm/explorers/neil-armstrong-s-one-and-only-apollo-11-lunar-module-flown-ms67-ngc-14k-gold-robbins-medal-directly-from-the-armstrong-fam/a/6209-50067.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

It's also the headline piece of the auction:

Stooge

@mannie gray said:
Thanks for the post, @SkyMan .

+1

Zoins

@SkyMan said:
Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 gold Robbins medallion just went up for auction today, July 16, at Heritage. It just went for $2,055,000. That is over 20 times what the next most expensive Robbins medallion (an Apollo 13 gold one) went for. Clearly only one person was going to win it, and obviously there were multiple people bidding on it. I wonder at what point it winnowed down to 2 people with big checkbooks duking it out.

I'm curious too. Hopefully someone who was there can provide some blow-by-blow account. Even when I'm watching on Heritage Live, it can be exciting to watch.

matt_dac

Congratulations on your new acquisition Sy! 😄

Hemispherical

Wow! Awesome!

Hope the new owners' has it displayed in a NASA or Space Museum somewhere.

ricko

That is a very impressive medal....Thanks @Skyman for another informative post....That is a piece of gold that would be an honor to own...Cheers, RickO

SkyMan

FWIW, Buzz Aldrin's gold Robbins went for a little over $8,000 in 1998.

While I can understand the allure of the piece, it is after all the single most desirable Robbins medallion out there, carried by Armstrong to the lunar surface on Apollo 11, for me personally I'd rather have a piece of hardware that was flown on the mission.

ilikemonsters

I hope nobody grabs their pitchforks after I say this..
But in the grand scheme of things, $2k isn't a lot in my opinion of something as historically important and valuable as this.
Agree or Disagree?

SkyMan

@ilikemonsters said:
I hope nobody grabs their pitchforks after I say this..
But in the grand scheme of things, $2k isn't a lot in my opinion of something as historically important and valuable as this.
Agree or Disagree?

I'd agree that $2k isn't that much at all for that item. However, we're talking over 1,000 times that amount:

$2,055,000

SanctionII

A great piece of memorabilia. Amazing that it sold for over $2 million.

What is odd to me is that NGC assigned a grade ("Mint State 67") to this gold medallion. The medallion is not a coin; and it was not produced by any "Mint".

How is it that the Sheldon Scale of 1-70 came to be applied to non coins? How far afield from coins produced by Government established Mints has the Sheldon Scale been applied?

oih82w8

Miskeyed letter ILM...should have been a "M" behind that $2.

I may get flamed for saying this, but that medal should not have received a MS designation, since it appears to me that the medal has been handled. The fields appear to have been wiped, not necessarily cleaned, by the lighter color/halos around the raised areas.

Nice historical piece nonetheless.

BLUEJAYWAY

Thanks for the history of the medals. I was unaware of the background of them.

291fifth

It does absolutely nothing for me. The $2 million + price is absurd.

philographer

I would prefer two houses 😜

Zoins

I love it. I'm a big fan of space memorabilia and although I've been priced out of a lot of auctions, I'm glad to see the strong interest. It was a huge moment in the history of our country. Such a great accomplishment.

WillieBoyd2

Who was the buyer?

ARCO

Off to the Safety deposit box it goes. Did the medal come with the flight capsule from that mission? It is only "worthless fiat" right?

ARCO

What an insane price. For 2 million a buyer could have bought 3/4 of a nice 1804 Silver dollar.

matt_dac

I picked up the modern silver restrike:

johnny9434

@Stooge said:

@mannie gray said:
Thanks for the post, @SkyMan .

+1

+2

Walkerfan

Strong price. But it is an amazing and beautiful piece of American history.