BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A collection of NASA pioneer Wernher von Braun's personal effects – including the notes he wrote in his desk calendars during the Apollo 11 and 13 space flights – is "priceless and then some," according to an "Antiques Roadshow" appraiser who viewed the collection at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex on Saturday.
The von Braun collection is in the archives of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, where the German rocket scientist came following World War II and later developed the Saturn V launch vehicle that sent America to the moon.
Appraisal expert James Supp of Tucson, Ariz., who said he always had an intense interest in the space program, said it is almost impossible to put a price on the value of the von Braun collection.
"There is no way to be sure because it never comes up for auction," Supp said. "This kind of stuff, it is part of history. It is very difficult to value because there are no real comparables for any of it.
"I mean, this is one of the most important moments of American (and) world history, all boiled down to one of the primary movers and shakers (von Braun). It's a tough thing to value."
Supp and about 70 to 80 other "Antiques Roadshow" appraisal experts were in Birmingham Saturday to tape three episodes of the show that will appear on PBS when the new season starts next year.
Deborah Barnhart, CEO and executive director of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, along with other representatives from the center, brought the von Braun personal effects to Saturday's appraisal event not so much to get an evaluation of their worth, she said, but to make more people aware of Huntsville's role in America's space history.
This is a copy of the book "First On the Moon" that was signed and personalized to Wernher von Braun by all three Apollo 11 astronauts. (Tamika Moore/tmoore@al.com)
"We took man to the moon from Alabama," she said. "These are some of the most important papers in the nation's history here in Huntsville."
All of the papers were carefully boxed and handled with museum gloves to keep them from getting smudged.
The collection included von Braun's notebooks from when he was 12 and 16 years old and already sketching rocket ships; his doctoral dissertation; his pocket slide rule; personal photographs; a framed letter from President Dwight D. Eisenhower; and a copy of the book "First On the Moon" signed and personalized to von Braun by all three Apollo 11 astronauts.
"Guesstimate on this one?" Supp said of the book. "I would have to talk to the book guys (appraisers), but $12,000 to $15,000 to $20,000, somewhere in there. It's that big of a range."
Typically, a pocket slide rule from the 1950s would be worth about $20 to $30, Supp said.
"Not a big deal," he said. "But (one) owned by Wernher von Braun, the pioneer of the rocket age, one of the biggest names in American science? For insurance purposes, probably around $2,000."
The Holy Grail for Supp, though, were the two desk calendars -- one from the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 and the other from the aborted Apollo 13 flight a year later.
This is the desk calendar with Wernher von Braun's hand-written notes from the day America landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. (Tamika Moore/tmoore@al.com)
In the one from Apollo 11, von Braun had penciled in "touchdown, lunar surface" inside the box for July 20, 1969.
In the one from Apollo 13, he had erased his notes and left the boxes blank in the days following an on-board explosion on April 13, 1970, that caused the astronauts to abort their mission. His notes resume after they safely returned to Earth on April 17.
Supp started to tear up after he looked at von Braun's notes.
"We've got two of the most iconic moments in human history . . . the times we reached the moon," he said. "How amazing.
"Reasonably speaking?" he added. "Priceless and then some."
If he had to put a price on the desk calendars, though, Supp said he "would not be uncomfortable with $30,000 each." But that's only a guess, he added.
The von Braun effects were left to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center after he died in 1977, and none of them are for sale at any price, Barnhart said.
Now, though, she is going to be even more careful with them.
"I guess we'd better lock the car on the way home, huh?" she said.
To read more stories by Bob Carlton, go here.