Before you is the bag used by Neil Armstrong in the Apollo 11 mission. It contained the first collected satellite samples
On Thursday at auction in New York, a new lot appeared - Neil Armstrong's bag, in which the first collected samples of lunar rock were found.
The deactivation bag from the Apollo 11 mission still retained traces of moon dust. He was sold on the 48th anniversary of the first landing. An anonymous buyer agreed to the acquisition after a 5-minute telephone conversation.
The previous owner is a lawyer from Illinois who bought him in 2015 for $ 995. But even with the buyer's premium, the bag did not justify a preliminary estimate of 2-4 million.
Of all the artifacts of the ship is the only one left in private ownership. Almost all the equipment after the return was transferred to the Smithsonian Museum. The bag was gathering dust for a long time in the warehouse until it was noticed by a collector from the Kansas Space Museum. He bought it, but after was accused of fraud. The FBI seized the box and handed it over for restitution.
It is made of the same fire-resistant material as the astronauts' costumes and was put up for sale four times before it was purchased in 2015.
Dark spots were seen inside and NASA demanded a bag for analysis that revealed lunar dust. After several years of trial, the bag was returned to the lawyer, who now put it on sale.
