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Alan Bean’s Apollo 12 Flown Heavily Mission-Used and Lunar Surface-Worn Felt Tip Pen

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:20,000.00 - 40,000.00 USD
Alan Bean’s Apollo 12 Flown Heavily Mission-Used and Lunar Surface-Worn Felt Tip Pen

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Auction Date:2016 Oct 20 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Alan Bean’s lunar flown black felt tip pen used extensively throughout the Apollo 12 mission and carried within Bean’s space suit during the mission’s two EVAs. The chrome body pen measures 5.25? in length, with a swatch of Velcro affixed to the pen cap; the aluminum cap clip engraved, “USA, Rocket.” In very good to fine condition. Accompanied by a handwritten and flight-certified letter of provenance from Bean, in full: “I hereby certify that the accompanying felt tip pen traveled with me to the lunar surface on the Ocean of Storms in November 1969. I used this pen in our command module, Yankee Clipper, on the way to and from the moon. I used it during descent, and landing on the moon, inside our lunar module, Intrepid, and on liftoff to rendezvous with the orbiting command module. I carried it in my right arm pocket during both moonwalks.”

Not long after the Apollo 8 mission, NASA purchased a number of these ‘Rocket’ felt tip pens from the Duro Pen Company in Brooklyn, New York, with the aim of replacing pencils and finding another writing instrument to complement the Fisher space pen. Each crew member from Apollo 11 onwards carried one ‘Rocket’ pen, and a total of twenty-seven of these Duro pens were flown into lunar orbit aboard an Apollo mission; twelve of those twenty seven pens were brought to the lunar surface within a lunar module. Exposed to the lunar surface during the mission’s historic two EVAs, this highly uncommon ‘Rocket’ pen is augmented furthermore by amazing provenance from Bean, the very astronaut who used the pen throughout the second moon-landing mission.