Dollar That Went to the Moon Sold for More Than $30,000 at Auction

A 1923 U.S. Peace Dollar which was taken to the moon by Astronaut Edwin E. 'Buzz' Aldrin during the historic Apollo 11, first-ever lunar landing, was sold at a Heritage Space Memorabilia auction for just over $30,000.

I met and knew several NASA astronauts while writing about the space race with the Soviets in the 1960s. I knew about Gus Grissom's 'lost' Mercury Dimes when his Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft sank to the bottom of the Atlantic. I was also aware of other numismatic and philatelic items flown in space by astronauts, but was unaware of Aldrin's Peace Dollar. Aldrin had spent 2 hours and 15 minutes walking on the moon, known in NASA parlance as EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity).

I met Buzz Aldrin less than five years after that flight, and before he had legally changed his name from Edwin E. Aldrin to the name he was commonly known as: Buzz Aldrin. Origin of his diminutive was not, as many people believed, the obvious nickname for a hotshot pilot (he was an Air Force colonel) but rather a shortened childhood pronunciation of 'buzzer' (for brother) by his younger sister.

Then, all this privileged access to NASA and the astronaut corps led me to write my Harper & Row tome The Space Program Quiz & Fact Book for which Astronaut Frank Borman wrote the introduction.

The very worn coin, which had been slabed, but not graded, by Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) carries the designation: "FLOWN ON THE MOON MISSION APOLLO 11 JULY 16-24, 1969 / DR. BUZZ ALDRIN." Aldrin, a West Point graduate, had earned a ph.D in Astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. His thesis was "Guidance for Manned Orbital Rendezvous," giving him a second nickname, "Dr. Rendezvous" in NASA, particularly among fellow astronauts..

The 1923 Peace Dollar had been among items in Aldrin's Personal Preference Kit (PPK) a privilege NASA gave to astronauts after several had 'smuggled' things aboard missions.