Collecting memorabilia of space exploration has become
one of the most popular and lucrative
of space hobbies.
American baby-boomers, for example, with their
kids grown up and out of the house and only their stock
portfolios to keep them company, have grown nostalgic
about the 1960's and the space race and they love to
purchase mementos of the time. Just listen to Ron Howard
or Tom Hanks talk about the 1960's space program and
you will get an idea of the potential.
Space collectibles include everything from astronaut
autographs to stamps to pieces of real space hardware
to toys. Regardless of whether your collection becomes
a future treasure, collecting can be a fun and educational
hobby.
Note:here the term memorabilia refers to those
items that can be authentically traced to a past era.
Collectibles, on the other hand, is used as a
general term for items, new or old, that come in a series,
such as patches, or fall into some general category,
such as toys, that lend themselves to collecting.
HobbySpace does
not endorse or certify in any way the sites listed
here and is not responsible for any of the contents
on those sites. All the links and site descriptions
were simply obtained from publicly available information
on the web or in print and given here for your convenience.
So exercise all reasonable caution
when making purchases of collectables and memorabilia
of any sort. See the above tips for advice.
ArtifactCloud.com
- "Premium space memorabilia, authentic autographs
and merchandise"
This space memoribilia sitdeals in various space collectibles
including flown artifacts. It has also offered the opportunity
to fly small items, e.g. business cards, on Russian
supply ships to Mir and the ISS. It also sold patches
of moon dust taken from a bag used on Apollo 15 and
from a camera magazine on Apollo 11 (see Space
Rock Collecting).
Space
Collectibles
"Space Collectibles gives you the opportunity to
start and enhance your collection of valuable space
collectibles, space artifacts, space memorabilia and
space prints from Nasa and Soviet space programs."
Space news, history, and other resources are available.
See also the Space
Collectibles Blog.
NASA Artifacts
NASA has a program for non-profit museums, universities,
and schools to obtain surplus space artifacts, which
now includes lots of space shuttle related items, for
public display and educational purposes:
The enormous space program under
the Soviet Union and mostly inherited by Russia resulted
in a wide array of collectibles. These range from patches
to actual flight hardware.
Alex
Panchenko Colllectibles
Full range of space and aviation collectibles including
Models, Autographs, and more.
Cosmonaut
Autographs
Lots of info and tips concerning cosmonaut autographs.
Includes images of many cosmonaut autographs ranging from
those flying in the 1961-1975
period and the 1976-1981
period. These images are useful for authentication
purposes.
Astronaut and cosmonaut signatures are
treasured just like those of movie stars and sports
heroes. The autographs of the space pioneers of the
1960's are especially popular.
Many astronauts and cosmonauts will respond
to a mailed request for autographs, although response
my be slow and some charge
a fee.
Remember that unless you see the autograph made in
person there is no absolute guarantee it is authentic.
See Pedro Amaral'sBeware
of Autopens.
Some of the sites below give images of
authentic signatures of many astronauts and cosmonauts
that you can use for comparison. See the FAQ
at the Ultimate
Space Place.
ApolloSpace ApolloSpace
(formerly Apollo8.com) offers autographs in separate
sections for Mercury, Gemini & Apollo, for Shuttle
era, and for cosmonauts.
ASE
Collectibles
The Association of Space Explorers (all members are astronauts
& cosmonauts who have been in space) offer posters
of their Congresses that have been signed by a space explorer.
Astronaut
Autographs at NovaGraphics
Novagraphics offers both autographed space art and autographed
photos. Autographed art includes works from Alan Bean
and Alexi Leonov. See, in particular, Bean's Reaching
for the Stars, which is signed by 24 astronauts.
Autographed photos include those of the Original 7 Mercury
astronauts and from several Apollo astronauts.
FarthestReaches.com
Sells astronaut and cosmonaut autographed photos. Also,
a book section includes autographed editions of astronaut
and other space related books.
Lunar
Legacies Lunar Legacies offers various space memorabilia
including autographs of famous astronauts, cosmonauts
and space scientists. They hold regular auctions of
space items.
NASA commissions
a unique patch
for every mission with artwork that symbolizes the goals
and spacecraft of the particular flight. The patches have
become among the most popular of space collectibles.
Sky
Force Space Patches
Joseph Fricano has been an avid space patch enthusiast
since 1965. His online store sells patches for all the
US space missions. The patches come with "detailed
explanation of the significance and importance behind
the symbols and colors choices used in the making of the
patch."
Astronaut
Connection
The Astronaut Connection
sells a wide range of patches in its space catalog. Their
patches come not only from NASA missions but also from
commercial military, and other space agencies
Space
Age Collectibles
A site devoted to space collectibles including patches.
The site has many pages and images describing the official
NASA commemorative designs for each mission.
The
SpaceStore
The Space Store carries a broad set of patches covering
missions from Mercury to the ISS. Also, includes - non-USA
patches.
More Space Patch resources:
Les
badges spatiaux - Based in France, this site "presents
all the badges that may have been worn by the men
of space. These small pieces of embroidered fabrics,
which are fixed on the flying outfits or the suits
of the cosmonauts, symbolize the whole history of
the space conquest".
Space exploration has been a
popular theme for stamps ever since Sputnik. Many countries,
including those without space programs, have issued
commemorative stamps of significant space events such
as the Moon landings.
Collecting such space stamps
has grown into a popular hobby and there are many groups
and websites devoted to it.
Note that philatelic
hobbies include not only stamps but also the collecting
of covers, especiallyFirst Day Space Covers.
A cover is an envelope with a canceled stamp on it.
So a First Day Space Cover would be an envelope with
a canceled space stamp on the first day the stamp was
issued.
Covers of particular interest
are those with a cachet (ka-shay),
a stamped design, such as a drawing of a rocket or portrait
of an astronaut, that commemorates some space event.
An autographed space cover
would have an autograph of someone associated with the
space stamp, e.g. an Apollo 11 astronaut and an Apollo
11 commemorative stamp.
Note: there are literally
thousands of websites devoted to the general hobby of
stamp collecting. See the link lists at American
Air Mail Society and Spacecover
to start exploring the wider philatelic cosmos.
Space
Topic Study Unit - This group is affiliated
with the American
Philatelic Society and the American Topical Association:
"The Space Unit is an organization of hobbyists
devoted to the collection and study of covers and
stamps issued on space themes. It has a world wide
membership and is the largest independent astrophilatelic
society in the world."
Knottywood
Treasures - "We carry a large amount
of space first day covers, sts flown covers, and space
related event covers. Space items can be easily found
at our site of 1,000's of pictured items by the use
of our "keyword search" routine."
Rocket
Mail In was hoped in the early days of rocketry that
delivering mail via rocket would become a viable market.
Attempts at creating such a business were made right
up to the 1960's.
While it never developed into a practical system, the
stamps and covers that flew on the rockets have become
collectors items.
See Paul
A. Roales' Rocketmail page for a nice history of
the topic and a number of references. Here are some
related sites:
These
sites deal with more than one type of space collectible
or memoribilia. Buy,
trade and collect space items for fun and to build a
possibly valuable collection someday in the future.
Related
Topics:
Russian/Soviet
Collectibles - see the above sub-section
for stores selling memoribilia from the Soviet and
Russian space programs.
Shopping
- Space stores sell space memorabilia and collectibles,
as well as general space items that may become the
valuable collectibles of tomorrow.
collectSPACE
Robert Pearlman's site is dedicated to space related
collecting of any sort. The site offers an enormous
amount of information, news, forum participation, and
more on topics related to both space collectibles and
space history.
FarthestReaches.com
Emphasizes astronaut and cosmonaut autographs but also
deals in other types of space memoribilia and collectibles
such as first edition space books.
Space
Age Collectibles
NASA, Patches, Caps, coins, Photos, Videos, Models, Philatelic,
Covers, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle, Space
Station.
Space
Age Museum
John, Veronica and Peter Kleeman have built a big collection
from the Space Age of "familiar objects such as
toys, amusements, fashion, advertising, decorative arts,
architecture — things that reveal how deeply the spacefaring
vision infused our culture".
Spaceflori Space collectibles and memoribilia for sell:
"...Each and every month this website will launch
a sale of premium Space Memorabilia - autographed
photos, covers, flown artifacts. Every month at the
pre-announced date and time we upload a completely
new inventory onto this page. All unsold items remain
available for sale until the next launch."
Includes items sold on consignment.
SpacePortUK
This UK site offers access to over 7500 space related
items. SpacePortUK is
"..a UK based authorized dealer for Alpha Industries
Inc. - manufacturer of military clothing for the USAF
and US Navy for over 40 years. We are also suppliers
of products relating to the achievements of man/woman
in space over the last 40 years."..
The catalog includes embroidered mission apparel, vinyl
models, patches, and more.
The
Space Shop - UK Collectables NASA Special And Rare Editions. Flown
In Space. Display Desk Models And More.
The
Ultimate Space PlaceThe Ultimate
Space Place provides sells space collectibles and
memoribilia such as astronaut autographs, Life magazines
with space covers, stamps, etc. Sections:
