DOWNTOWN — If you're looking for that special, one-of-a-kind gift, why not shoot for the moon?
If you have $2 million to $4 million, that is.
A bag that contains evidence of moon dust is being auctioned off by suburban Chicago attorney Nancy Lee Carson who gained control of the artifact after a legal battle with the federal government.
The bag, marked LUNAR SAMPLE RETURN," was from the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 and was used to hold rocks. The bag, mistakenly was sold by NASA, is being auctioned by Sotheby's in New York.
Sothebys estimates the likely price based on the auction being the first time moon dust has been legally sold.
Carlson plans to donate a portion of the sale proceeds to charity and to establish a scholarship at her alma mater, Northern Michigan University, Reuters reports.
"This is like the Holy Grail," Carlson told the Tribune in March.
"It is one thing to read about going to the moon; it is quite another to hold in one's hands an object that was actually there and still carries traces of that faraway place," said Sotheby's vice president Cassabda Hatton.
A corporate and real estate attorney who was geology buff as a child, Carlson bought the bag for $995 in 2015 on a government website, www.forfeiture.gov. NASA says it was sold by mistake and made an unsuccessful legal attempt to retrieve it.
The highest price ever on the private market for a U.S. space artifact was $1.625 million for a Bulova wristwatch worn by Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott on the moon in 1971, according to collectspace.com.
