1968 Space estate piece - North American Rockwell / Aviation - comments?

I wasn't born yet when my father went to work for Hamilton, so he never had that problem with me.(LOL)

 

Thanks all, nice to hear from those in aerospace. We are in an area loaded with companies that worked on all those great projects and it is not unusual to get space related items. Typically pins, service awards, pictures and other ephemera. This is one of the more elaborate and unusual pieces we've seen. I think we are seeing more these days as estates come to market (sadly). The good news is that there seems to be a lot of collectors, so someone is preserving these items for the future.

 

I have some more information on the owner of the piece. His name was Alvy P. (Paul) Shultz (1915-2005). The information supplied with it says that he headed the Apollo Space Program work at North American Rockwell. I haven't found much on him via google and wonder if any of the aerospace people here recall the name? I have an old Accutron presentation watch with Rockwell logo on the face, marked as a 35 year service award in 1976, with Alvy P. Shultz on the back.

 

Wow, I had hoped to find some fuzzy photo or other documentation of the provenance of this piece, but we hit the mother load. Not only some nice large pictures, but there is an entire booklet with a picture of the award on the cover! Check these shots out:

 

Here's the #2 pic from above, I guess I hit the wrong button and it didn't show up inline. The paragraph with the yellow highlight shows the connection to A(lvy) P. Shultz who ended up with the award. It was found in a closet among his estate items just about a half century later!

 

Wow! Congrats on finding those great pictures! Fabulous sleuthing and what an interesting item.

 

great connection !!!

 

I've been to NASA Huntsville, Alabama.
It's where 'Space Camp' for kids is too.
I suggest there as a donor option.

 

I was also lucky to be in the testing and clean rooms for the first Hubble telescope.
WOW how cool was THAT I tell you!
It was lost with the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger in '86.

 

We had a tiny black and white TV rolled out for us in the huge auditorium, you couldn't see it if back a ways... We did this for everything early on.
Best event ever...
John Glenn on my birthday.

 

Awesome find!! My brother was an engineer and worked on something for the space program. He couldn't say what at the time and just never said afterwards. Hmmm.

I grew up in Derry, NH aka Spacetown USA. Alan Shepard was from Derry. I sat in his seat in Biology - his generation carved their initials into their desks. We had an impromptu parade the day he went up. They took all the kids out of school and gave us little flags and we drove down Main Street with everyone else in town honking horns and cheering and waving our flags out the bus window. A motel at the entrance to town changed it's name to the Spacetown Motel and had a big rocket statue out front.

 

Those were fantastic times and what an amazing engineering achievement, especially with the ambitious timeframe and considering the technology that was available! We are close to having this piece listed and it will go with a package of the photos and other related material. We have more items from the estate to process, including some of the original rocket manuals and blue prints. It must have been incredible to work there -- I'm so happy this stuff didn't end up thrown away! Still hard to accept what was done with slide rules in the days before wide spread computer use. Even the wood on the award had to be done by hand, no CNC or computer assist for the most part back then, just some really talented people.

 

Has anyone seen the movie; Hidden Figures?
I suggest you do.

-
My brother had something to do with the design of the balloons that were added to the capsules so they couldn't sink again.

 

I'm very interested in how the things you found wind up being valued and marketed @gimbler-dave. We have boxes and boxes of similar items (manuals, souvenirs, photos...) from Rocketdyne mostly. We're feeling verrrry overwhelmed by it.

 

Will follow up with you Melissa, but may run out of time today - It is "Friday" here, and our weekend is Tuesday and Wednesday. Back on Thursday. It sounds like you have some interesting material. I will leave with a question ... Do you know who this is by chance? He appears on some Saturn S-II trophies with 1964 to 1968 dates. I'm thinking maybe a sci-fi character from the 50's or early 60's. Very iconic with jetpack, guns, goofy helmet.

 

I'm back -- will follow up with you Melissa when I get a bit of time, but your question is right on target, we've been faced with those exact issues, especially since the later arrival of the bulk of the estate material. What was simple with just a few pieces suddenly became a lot more complicated. I am going to move the ID of the figure above to a new thread. ... Dave

 

We just completed the eBay listing yesterday on the 1968 SPACE award. It is item 371997549099. We've been able to figure out a lot more of the back story, now that the original period documentation turned up. Our best guess is that only two of these were ever made, with one awarded to a production department, and the other given to an administrative department (both in 1968). In the collection of other estate paperwork that we have, there is no mention of anything like this in future years, just more traditional wall plaque style awards. This wood award, with the amazing 3d surface, had to take a lot of work to create, so I'm thinking Rockwell wouldn't have wanted to continue with that expense in future years.
Thanks to all with your help and comments. It has been much appreciated. I hope everyone has a nice holiday weekend! ... Dave

 

he may have less clothes on.....but to me...that's still Buck Rogers....
vintage version....
1936....