The moon dust collected by Neil Armstrong in 1969 during the Apollo 11 mission was presented at the auction and got sold for $ $504,375.The winning bid was $400,000 and the final price included fees and the buyer's premium. The auction took place at Bonhams, as part of its Space History Sale held Wednesday (April 13) in New York.
According to Forbes, the final price fell short of the bonhams pre-auction estimated value. The pre-auction estimate was $800,000 to $1.2 million.
"Lot 21 shown on your screens presents a unique opportunity to own a NASA-verified piece of the Apollo 11 contingency sample," said Ian Ehling, Bonhams' director of fine books and manuscripts, before opening the bidding at $220,000.
The lunar samples were also declared authentic by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration( NASA). The winning bidder has not been identified yet.
There had been a lot of controversy clouding around the microscopic lunar dust. The dust was believed to be lost by NASA. They had been stolen by a past curator of the Cosmosphere space museum in Hutchinson, Kansas, Max Ary.
But they were later seized by the US Marshal. Later they were auctioned off by the US marshal to Nancy Carlson for $995 in 2015. Carlson sent the bag of dust to NASA for identifying its origin. NASA on the other hand, when they learned the importance of the sample refused to return them to Nancy Carlson.
Nancy Carlson filed a lawsuit against NASA and Eventually won. And now the moon dust has been sold at the Bonhams auction.