Put your bid in for Apollo Hasselblad Camera

Mainecoonmaniac · Oct 22, 2012

It's a piece of history.

Dead Link Removed

tony lockerbie · Oct 22, 2012

Really cool. I have one of those, just have to paint it grey and attach a few plaques

Mainecoonmaniac · Oct 22, 2012

I could see you on Antiques Road Show

tony lockerbie said:
Really cool. I have one of those, just have to paint it grey and attach a few plaques

"Schwing"..."This Hasselblad is worth $70,000".

Kevin Kehler · Oct 22, 2012

"Flown provenance has not been positively established by RR Auction."

We think but don't know for certain. While cool, not $70k cool.

usuthu65 · Oct 22, 2012

Maybe it's just me, but I would think that someone who worked at JSC during the Apollo era would have known very well that it's not "reso plate" but "reseau plate":

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-reseau.html

The mistake is also in the letter establishing provenance (or more correctly not establishing it). If you're going for the big bucks, it pays to check spelling!

ezwriter · Oct 23, 2012

It says auction ended Oct 18. Did i win?

heterolysis · Oct 23, 2012

usuthu65 said:
it's not "reso plate" but "reseau plate"

Maybe that's why they put it in quotations

A wonderful piece of history, and a wonderful camera to boot. Thankfully, such fantastic cameras are widespread (mine's black) and no one will be losing out when this one sits as a trophy on a shelf.

rawhead · Oct 23, 2012

I thought all the Apollo ELs were left on the moon

Peter Simpson · Oct 23, 2012

Apollo 13 didn't get there...but its LEM burned up in the atmosphere. Perhaps this was a backup camera?

lensman_nh · Oct 23, 2012

rawhead said:
I thought all the Apollo ELs were left on the moon

Pretty much correct.

Also not that they flew these cameras on plenty of shuttle missions too. It may never have been flown and was used for training purposes. A training camera is my best guess for this piece.

Dali · Oct 23, 2012

rawhead said:
I thought all the Apollo ELs were left on the moon

It is also what I heard, only the backs went back on Earth (way better than the opposite, imagine...).

Mike Wilde · Oct 23, 2012

I think that they came back and got substantially parted out on refurb. Ron Mowray in his Kodak time acquired a part of a hasseblad that went up and back with Apollo.

Dali · Oct 23, 2012

I don't see the added value for NASA to bring back cameras bodies and lenses. It is dead weight and weight is the ennemy in space (need energy to accelerate it). But I might be wrong... :confused:

lensman_nh · Oct 24, 2012

Dali said:
I don't see the added value for NASA to bring back cameras bodies and lenses. It is dead weight and weight is the ennemy in space (need energy to accelerate it). But I might be wrong... :confused:

Some did come back. They did take pictures of the command module and LEM after jettison prior to re-entry for engineering purposes, so thay had to have at least one camera available in the CM. I suspect they had more than one for redundancy.

Anything that actually went to the moon got left there so far as I know. I don't even recall seeing a picture taken from the LEM of the CM during lunar orbit rendevous, but I've seem plenty of the LEM ascent stage taken from the CM. Seeing a picture of the CM taken from the LEM at lunar orbit rendevous would prove at least one came back from the lunar surface.

At this point I'm not sure even NASA could give a reliable answer. Everything is on paper somewhere in a giant warehouse if it wasn't already shredded.

tih · Oct 26, 2012

Back in the day, Hasselblad ran magazine ads offering free cameras - if you could figure out a way to fetch them.

-tih

rolleiman · Oct 26, 2012

Mainecoonmaniac said:
"Schwing"..."This Hasselblad is worth $70,000".

One of the neatest bits of advertising I recall from those days, advertising the Kowa 6x6:

"Our camera hasn't been to the moon, so it doesn't cost the earth".......

Put your bid in for Apollo Hasselblad Camera

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