Bonus Appraisal: Signed NASA Photos, ca. 1965
APPRAISER: That was January 27th, 1967?
GUEST: Yes, when the fire, yes-
APPRAISER: Was the Apollo 1 fire that killed-
GUEST: Killed those two-
APPRAISER: Ed White-
GUEST: Ed White-
APPRAISER: And Virgil Grissom-
GUEST: Yes. We were in a space race and we just worked, and worked, and worked and sometimes the paperwork didn't catch up with everything. It was just a ... We were working 12, 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. As we found problems, serious problems, the company finally basically told us, "You, we heard it all. You don't have to tell us." When I told the astronauts this, because they were personal friends of mine, and they said they knew it too. If they tried to make a big stink about it, they would have been kicked off the astronaut program. You can even see pictures later on with them sitting around praying. My boss gave me this picture.
He had a whole bunch of photographs, and he made sure I got that one because Apollo 1 was my spacecraft from the quality standpoint. After the fire ... I never collected autographs until then. They were just good friends of mine, and I felt embarrassed to ask them for their autograph. That's how personal friends we were but after the fire I was so down and out for weeks, I would just … you just can't believe how ... I grieved so much. My boss gave me that picture for sure because I'm in in, too. I'm keeping an eye-
APPRAISER: So that's you in the-
GUEST: Yes, that's me in the blue. I had to keep an eye on the astronauts. That was my job because they're crazies. They're fun and I had to say, "Don't touch that, don't handle that, don't do that," you know. And they said, "You don't tell me what to do." I said, "Well, I'm telling you don't do it." They would listen to me sometimes, usually listen to me. I used to go running with them. We'd go jogging together. We raced up the whole launch tower to the top one time. This other photo is just ... I had a whole stack of all the photos of all the astronauts so when we would be there testing and when it's slow time I just go grab a photograph, and they'd autograph it for me.
APPRAISER: Neil Armstrong, one of the most famous of the astronauts and one of the most desirable from a standpoint-
GUEST: Really-
APPRAISER: Of autographs. A lot of autopens, a lot of fakes, and you don't see a lot of real ones so the fact that he signed it in your presence and signed it for you, that adds a good bit of value to it.
GUEST: He was on the X1 and then when he signed the Apollo, he hadn't been assigned to a spacecraft yet. He'd been assigned to it but we hadn't flown so he just put Apollo on it. That makes it extra special.
APPRAISER: On the Neil Armstrong photo, we would estimate that alone at auction between $2,000 and $3,000.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: The one photo here signed by Gus Grissom and Ed White is a rare one, obviously, because of the unfortunate accident.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: We don't see those. If we estimated that picture today, we would estimate it between $6,000 and $8,000.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: Just these two pictures alone, another $8,000 to $11,000 at auction.
GUEST: Okay. I had no idea. To tell you the truth somebody told me this was worth 100 bucks. I just figured -
APPRAISER: A little more than that-
GUEST: If I had $1,000 for everything, I'd say, "Well, that's good," but not all these numbers you're throwing at me.
APPRAISER: No, I think in that suitcase you brought today there's over $100,000 worth of stuff.
GUEST: Okay. Well, thank you.
