No bids for Hammergren’s spaceship
Apparently nobody wants to buy a spaceship, at least not for $200,000.
St. Louis-based auction company Regency-Superior reported no bids on Wednesday for former Lt. Gov. Lonnie Hammargren’s 1960s Apollo Command Module Block 1 mock-up, which was a fixture in the retired neurosurgeon’s eclectic collection since he acquired it in the mid-1970s.
Hammargren had nearly 20 items up in the ongoing auction, including a 1940s Pratt & Whitney R-4360 WASP Major Engine, a letter from Howard Hughes discussing the sale of the Silver Slipper casino, and Russian space art, including a 1995 oil painting by Russian Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space.
Regency-Superior estimated the command module’s value at $400,000 to $600,000. The minimum bid was $200,000.
Several dozen full-scale and properly weighted mock-ups were created to test flight systems for the Apollo space program.
The command module will remain available for sale at the minimum bid price via Regency-Superior’s website.
Contact reporter Francis McCabe at fmccabe@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512. Find him on Twitter: @fjmccabe
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