Memorabilia from first man on the moon Neil Armstrong fetches $7.4 million at auction

Neil Armstrong on the moon Credit: PA

Memorabilia that belonged to the first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, has fetched more than $7.4 million at auction.

Heritage Auctions, based in Dallas, said the item that sold for the highest price, $468,500, at Saturday’s auction was Armstrong’s spacecraft ID plate from Apollo 11’s lunar module Eagle.

Also sold were a fragment from the propeller and a section of the wing from the Wright brothers’ Flyer, the first heavier-than-air self-powered aircraft, which each sold for $275,000.

$275,000 was paid for this piece of the Wright Flyer's Propeller, part of the first successful powered flight in 1903.

The flight suit Armstrong wore aboard Gemini Eight, the 1966 mission that performed the first docking of two spacecraft in flight, brought the astronaut’s family $109,375.

Neil Armstrong's flight suit sold for $109,375.
A signed envelope, stamped and carried to the moon on Apollo 11, was also up for sale.

Meanwhile, in a separate auction, a gold-coloured Navy aviator’s helmet once owned by John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, sold for $46,250.