Additional Coverage:
- ‘Pawn Stars’ boss Rick Harrison lowballs too much for Apollo 13 relic that guest sought $50,000 for (marketrealist.com)
A hopeful seller on “Pawn Stars” aimed for a lunar landing-sized payday with a piece of Apollo 13 history, but ultimately left empty-handed after a lowball offer from Rick Harrison. The seller claimed the item was a fragment of the Apollo 13 heat shield, a relic from the perilous mission that saw the astronauts struggle to return to Earth after an oxygen tank explosion. He was hoping for $50,000.
The drama unfolded as the seller explained the artifact’s provenance, stating his father, a NASA employee, had received it as a gift. However, a critical piece of the puzzle was missing: any documentation verifying its authenticity. With no paperwork and no markings on the object itself, Harrison wisely called in an expert.
The expert, Mark from the Clark County Museum, recognized the fragment as potentially being from the Apollo 13 heat shield. But, mirroring the seller’s predicament, he couldn’t definitively confirm its origins due to the lack of supporting evidence. The Apollo 13 mission, a dramatic race against time and near-disaster in space, could have made any artifact associated with it incredibly valuable.
Harrison, ever the shrewd negotiator, offered a meager $2,000. The seller countered with $30,000 – a significant drop from his initial asking price, but still a world away from Harrison’s offer.
No deal was made, leaving the question of the heat shield fragment’s authenticity – and its potential value – unanswered. Did Harrison miss out on a golden opportunity, or dodge a potentially expensive bullet?
Only time will tell.