ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, December 12, 1993                   TAG: 9312120057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: E-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

GOING, GOING . . . GONE

Retired cosmonaut Alexei Leonov sat high above the auction floor Saturday, watching people bid crazily for his old spacesuit. When the bidding was over, the relic of the great space race sold for $255,500.

"I got a very, very peculiar feeling," he said. "But on the other hand, I got a different feeling, a feeling of reason. That it's reasonable to hold an auction."

The Sotheby's auction attracted curious youngsters, veteran astronomers and eager manuscript dealers, far different from chic high society types who usually turn up at art sales.

A cache of moon rocks, retrieved by the Luna 16 expedition, sold for $442,500. One bidder paid $68,500 for a prize he might never collect: The Lunokohd-1 lunar surface rover and the Luna 17 descent stage, both still on the moon.

"This is the first item, I believe, ever sold that is on a celestial body," deadpanned auctioneer David Redden.

The auction's total take was A cache of moon rocks, retrieved by the Luna 16 expedition, sold for $442,500. One bidder paid $68,500 for a prize he might never collect: The Lunokohd-1 lunar surface rover and the Luna 17 descent stage, both still on the moon. $6.8 million on 226 lots sold, Sotheby's said. The sale drew a packed room of bidders and had phone lines burning up with interested parties from Australia, Japan, France, England, Germany and Italy. They were competing with folks like 10-year-old Bynum Hunter of Greensboro, N.C.

Bynum's parents shelled out $1,700 for some commemorative Soviet space race stamps. They also purchased a photograph of cosmonaut Georgi Grechko and his fellow space travelers. The family met Grechko when they visited Russia last summer.

So, Bynum, do you want to be an astronaut? "I don't know," he replied. "It might be dangerous."

Most items went for well above pre-sale estimates. An autographed draft of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's flight instructions from the first manned flight was expected to bring about $10,000. After a spirited round of telephone bidding, the draft went for $74,000. 


 by CNB