Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

My family has been kind of indirectly associated with the space race for years and years. My father was a manager of a hotel that was partially owned by the seven original Mercury astronauts. And through that friendship, he got to meet a lot of the other people and become friends with different astronauts. And subsequently some stories came out of it, and ultimately that's why we're here. Yes, I have a collection of a lot of different astronauts and autographs and all that. But I think it's the story behind it that really made it interesting for us. Through this entire space industry, interesting childhood for my sister and myself. There'd be dignitaries coming in because it was so fresh and new to the U.S. that at one point we were told to try to keep the kids of Wernher von Braun busy. Went bowling with his kids.

APPRAISER

You've got an incredible collection of items here. And I only chose a few specific items for us to actually look at today. We've got this great photograph of your dad in front of the hotel. But it's got something interesting on the sign here. "Try our cornbeef, it is out of this world."

GUEST

There are stories that kind of came and went a little bit over the course of, you know, a few decades now. They've changed a little, but my father is recently passed, and there's no longer going to be another congressional investigation. But what had happened was Dad and John Young were talking about the food that they had to eat-- emulsified, reconstituted stuff in bags and packages. And Dad said, "Well, John, if you'd let me know, I could have catered it from Wolfie's," which is a great delicatessen in the Ramada Inn here in Cocoa Beach. Well, out of that, these two got together and they tried to figure out a way that they could get a couple of corned beef sandwiches into space. From there, Dad and John went into the kitchen, took a full thick slice of corned beef, and then they started wrapping it in cellophane. They go to the top of a six-foot ladder, and they would drop it. Okay, it's going to hold together. Well, there was no Ziploc bags back then, so this is how it had to be done. Well, I think with Wally Schirra's help, they were able to get a couple of corned beef sandwiches into the flight suit front pockets, and the joke was going to be to Gus, basically-- he knew nothing about it, Gus Grissom and John Young were going to be on this flight-- he was going to say, "Gus, what do you want on that corned beef sandwich?" Well, they pulled it out, and the sandwich has just disintegrated. There was caraway seeds and crumbs and everything everywhere. And nobody probably would have heard anything about this had it not gotten back down to ground. They had the capsule on the top of the carrier, and as they were taking photos, there was crumbs and stuff everywhere. Well, out of that, there was a congressional investigation that I don't really know where it went too far, but things were changed around to keep my dad's name out of it at that time.

APPRAISER

Well, it's fantastic. I mean one of the aims of the Gemini III mission was to test different foods in space. And to have a corned beef sandwich brought onboard, along with all these emulsified glycerin-covered foods.

GUEST

Yeah, yeah.

APPRAISER

I can see why the government might get a little upset and decided to do a little bit of an investigation about it.

GUEST

Stuff was put in jeopardy, no doubt, but, thankfully, no harm, no foul on that one, so...

APPRAISER

Well, it seemed to go over pretty well, and it wasn't the last time that John Young brought a corned beef sandwich into space. On his first space shuttle mission, they actually had corned beef sandwiches onboard. I'm not sure if it was by his request or...

GUEST

Well, I would... I would think.

APPRAISER

You've got this great letter from Alan Shepard to your dad on the Ramada Inn stationery. It says, "Carlos, I needed a corn beef sandwich, and all I got was baloney!" Kind of corroborated what transpired. I'm sure they all knew about it afterwards.

GUEST

It was... it was common knowledge after a while, so.

APPRAISER

We also chose two photographs. Both signed by Neil Armstrong dedicated to your father over here, your father and mother.

GUEST

Mom and Dad, yeah.

APPRAISER

And to you as a kid.

GUEST

Correct, yeah.

APPRAISER

This is an incredible collection. The photograph, it's a wonderful photograph, shows Ramada Inn at the height of the astronaut training in Florida. It's wonderful that it has Wolfie's, where the sandwich supposedly came from. And then we have this great letter on the letterhead signed by Alan Shepard to your dad. We estimate at auction this would sell for between $3,000 and $5,000.

GUEST

(laughs) Too fun, too fun.

APPRAISER

Just for this great little slice of astronaut history. It's just a wonderful personal note.

GUEST

How fun, how fun.

APPRAISER

And now we have these two other photographs here. These are some of the earliest signed photographs with the NASA background of Neil Armstrong. It's a wonderful, clear signature, wonderful dedication. It's just a beautiful, beautiful photo. We estimate at auction, each one would sell for between $7,000 and $10,000 each.

GUEST

Chair, please. (laughing) Very good. No clue it was going to be anything like that.

APPRAISER

They are beautiful, it's a great young picture of him. And the signature, you couldn't ask for better. And we look at this entire collection, there is so much here from the early astronaut days, it's absolutely beautiful. You've got some great photos here of some of the greatest astronauts. As a whole, we'd estimate around $40,000 to $50,000.

GUEST

Wow, wow. Thanks, Dad.