Just before midnight last Friday, the alarm sounded at the Armstrong Air & Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio, the hometown of Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon. When officials arrived at the scene, they found that thieves had stolen only one object: a five-inch tall solid-gold replica of the Lunar Excursion Module, or LEM that landed on the moon, reports James Doubek at NPR.
The stolen 18-karat-gold model was one of three produced by the legendary jewelry company Cartier for the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. The newspaper's readers funded the scale models, which the newspaper presented to Armstrong and his Apollo 11 colleagues, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin, during a 1969 visit to Paris. Each model contains a bit of microfilm printed with all the names of the readers who donated towards their creation.
As Doubek reports, it’s hard to put a value on Armstrong’s copy of the scale model. But for a general idea, Cartier purchased Michael Collin’s model for $56,000 when it went up for auction in 2003.
According to the Associated Press, there is speculation that the model was not stolen by collectors or art thieves, but was nabbed instead by burglars looking to melt it down for gold. Joseph Gutheinz Jr., a retired federal agent who has worked with NASA to recover stolen artifacts, points out that there is a moon rock nearby the model that could be worth millions of dollars on the black market. “Either [the thieves] didn't have easy access to the moon rock, or they weren’t into collectibles,” he tells the AP. “They were into turning a quick buck.”
Read more: Thieves Steal Solid Gold Lunar Lander Model From Armstrong Museum | Smart News | Smithsonian
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! Give the gift of Smithsonian
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
The five-inch model was created by Cartier as tribute from French newspaper readers to the Apollo 11 astronaut
Read more: Thieves Steal Solid Gold Lunar Lander Model From Armstrong Museum | Smart News | Smithsonian
The stolen 18-karat-gold model was one of three produced by the legendary jewelry company Cartier for the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. The newspaper's readers funded the scale models, which the newspaper presented to Armstrong and his Apollo 11 colleagues, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin, during a 1969 visit to Paris. Each model contains a bit of microfilm printed with all the names of the readers who donated towards their creation.
As Doubek reports, it’s hard to put a value on Armstrong’s copy of the scale model. But for a general idea, Cartier purchased Michael Collin’s model for $56,000 when it went up for auction in 2003.
According to the Associated Press, there is speculation that the model was not stolen by collectors or art thieves, but was nabbed instead by burglars looking to melt it down for gold. Joseph Gutheinz Jr., a retired federal agent who has worked with NASA to recover stolen artifacts, points out that there is a moon rock nearby the model that could be worth millions of dollars on the black market. “Either [the thieves] didn't have easy access to the moon rock, or they weren’t into collectibles,” he tells the AP. “They were into turning a quick buck.”
Read more: Thieves Steal Solid Gold Lunar Lander Model From Armstrong Museum | Smart News | Smithsonian
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! Give the gift of Smithsonian
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/f4/65/f46511cd-2e40-47c1-9a82-ed090b148ef3/lunar_lander.jpg)
The five-inch model was created by Cartier as tribute from French newspaper readers to the Apollo 11 astronaut
Read more: Thieves Steal Solid Gold Lunar Lander Model From Armstrong Museum | Smart News | Smithsonian
