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Rick's Collections
Aerospace Collection
Did anyone else have one of these Mercury capsule banks as a kid???
From My Aerospace Collection......More NASA used equipment.
Rib section from a destroyed German V-2 rocket.
-From My Apollo "Flown" Collection- This limited edition 25th anniversary Apollo 11 watch was designed by Astronaut Buzz Aldrin. The face of the watch was made, in part, from a blend of flown metal from spacecrafts Columbia and Eagle that that took the Apollo 11 crew to and from the moon on our first lunar landing mission. Recently I took it to the jeweler and had him add a fragment of one of my moon rock lunar meteorites between the astronaut's legs. In doing so this makes this watch a one of a kind priceless piece of jewelry.
Everyone laughed at me for bringing home "junk" from the historic launch complexes and thought I was crazy. Back in the 80s, while working on the Cape book, I decided to create a limited edition of launch pad card sets with the history of the launch pad and affixed a small piece of the pad to the card. 200 sets were created and cover the historic launch pads.The pads covered were pad 26, launch site of our first satellite, pad 5 the site of our first American in space, pad 14 as shown below for the first manned orbital flights, pad 19 the site of our two man Gemini program and pad 34 the the site of the first Saturn launch, the pad the Apollo 1 crew died on and the site of our first manned Apollo mission Apollo 7. There were two cards for pad 19. One covered the pad and one for it's whiteroom with a piece of the lanouium the astronauts walked on. I had the last laugh as the card sets sold well and it provided me cash for obtaing my many collections. Sadly I had to sell my set at the time of my divorce for ready cash so I don't have one. I also gave numerous sets to my astronaut friends and I was pleased to see John Glenn has his on display at Ohio State University! I would also like to mention that launch pad artifacts are worth their weight in gold these days since the pads, for the most part, no longer exist!
Light Shield from spacecraft level white room on Pad 19. A real treasure from my collection that can easily be seen in all the photos and footage of the Gemini astronauts in the White Room as they enter the spacecrafts prior to launch.
New addition to space collection.... Countdown clock number from countdown clock used in firing room 1 during the Apollo missions to the moon.....A real piece of space history!
New addition to my Space Collection.......This railroad spike was used on the gantry railroad tracks at Cape Canaveral that ran between launch pads 5, 6 and 26 A&B. Pad 5 is where our first two Suborbital manned flights took place and 26 is the launch site where we launched our first satellite. The railroad tracks were tore out in the 60s. This spike was presented to Astronaut Wally Schirra years ago by the Air Force Space Museum.
Apollo 13 collectibles from my collection. A medallion containing flown Apollo 13 metal, a pen set that contains flown wire from the Lunar Module, and gold Kapton mylar from the hull of Apollo 13 and flown aft ablative heatshield fragments from the Command Module. The last photo shows the kapton and heatshield fragments that I attached to a Apollo 13 cover. I also owned a complete set of medallions that belonged to Astronaut Gordon Cooper that contained flown Apollo 13 metal.
Yesterday I posted two Pad 19 paint chip stickers to sell...so today I thought I'd share with you how I used mine from pads 5 and 14 to give you an idea what the end result could be. In doing so it is ample enough space to have them signed, but more importantly you have a cover that was postmaked at the place and date of said mission plus relics from the historic launch site. Launch pad pieces over the years have been prevalent but today they are EXTREAMLY rare and costly since the pads by in large have been completely destroyed and done away with. I have covers in my collection like this for each and every historic launch pad along with plain launch day covers. No they are not for sale. Rick Boos 2017
My star piece from Launch Complex 5 was the actual spacecraft umbilical head used on Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 flight. It provided electrical power to the spacecraft up until the T minus 30 second mark when the spacecraft went out internal power. I obtained it from my friend launchpad leader Guenter Wendt. Only two umbilical heads were ever kept from the Mercury program , this one and Al Shepard's. Guenter chef the side of this one for me. Rick Boos 2017
This is another item that belonged to Gus Grissom that I obtained from Betty, his wife. As you can see, she also signed this as well. Gus brought a number of these posters home with him. This hung in my den for years. As previously stated items belonging to Gus are hard to come by.
Letter from Gus Grissom
This signed report on the Liberty Bell was given to Rick by Virgil Grissom in January of 1967
This is an actual Cosmonaut Space Suit Glove of mine that is displayed in my den. The blue marble between the thumb and the index finger represents the earth as viewed from the moon. My friend astronaut Jim Irwin told me that he could hold the earth between these two fingers and that he could block out the earth with his thumb when he was on the moon!!!...Just think everything that you know, love, and hate can be hid by the thumb! Jim also said that the earth reminded him of the most beautiful, delicate, fragile Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space and if you touched it it would crumble and fall apart. I think we all need to look at spaceship Earth with a new perspective and realize as the astronauts do that the problems that seem so monumental here on earth disappear in insignificance from their vantage point!!!!L.......Something to think about as we are about to embark on a new year!
For years Astronaut Jim Irwin published his High Flight new testament Bibles and distributed on various airlines and elsewhere. This is my signed copy.
Rick's Treasure from Gordon Cooper........Just posted about "Cooper's Treasures" and ended up investigating in a "Flown" and signed MA-9 Faith 7-1957 silver certificate dollar bill that belonged to Gordo and carried into space with him on his first mission!!!!! .....WoW!!!! What a find! Gordo and I were friends for years and was always one of my favorite astronauts. At one time I owned his owned and worn watch and a shroud cutter knife he carried into space but unfortunately I was forced to sell them........THIS makes up for that BIG TIME!!!!
From My Flown Space Shuttle Collection.............A special presentation made for me of flow SRB parachute material.
Universal Collection
Rick's phone booth was set up in his Celina, Ohio home and actually worked!
At the bottom of the display was a Roy Rogers owned and worn shirt and one of his red bandana, Dale Evens's blouse and a decorative piece from trigger. I obtained numerous other things from his estate that are not shown ncluding a pair of his shoes and other personal items.
Missing my old Seeburg jukebox's!.......A blast from the past!
My brimstone from Sodom and Gomorrah came in today's mail!!!!!! An ultra rare artifact to add to my collection. I am very satisfied and still amazed by it, never thought I'd obtain such a rare piece of Biblical history!!!!!
Rick's biggest treasure was this copy of the Shroud…..he loved this piece.
My Indy 500 A.J. Foyt signed speedway brick. He signed it
above the W.C. Co. Using a black
marker and also added the 4 years
he won in each corner of the brick.
My 67 year old unused Roy Rogers cap gun.
From my war collection, a well used Viet Nam Zippo lighter.......I used it for many years when I smoked.
The Elvis Presley "stage used" microphone displays. I still need to add the tag.
Friday night and wearing Elvis Presley's 1970s red silk shirt
A few of Elvis's Presley's Religious related items in my collection.
This is another one of my "Elvis owned and used" favorites. It is Elvis's telephone that he used at Graceland and came from his bathroom. It was obtained from his personal nurse.
Jan and Dean: Jan and I were good friends for about 25 years before he died. He was my inspiration after I had my accident. I really miss him!!! A couple of years ago Dean and I got together. The movie was pretty much accurate, but what it didn't show is how Jan changed after the accident. He was really a very kind and lonely person. His wife told me when he died he had only four good friends and I was one of them. Davey Jones, Bryan Wilson, Nancy Sinatra, and myself".
My one of a kind Jan & Dean signed trolls!
A.J. Foyt’s well worn pair of driving gloves
from my collection.
This is a "General Lee" jump car hood that I obtained. It was too large to display in the basement so it was hung in my garage...... Interesting side note.....The underside of the hood was damaged by a engine fire!
I had a couple 40s and 50s Pepsi Cola water coolers. Can't find the exact image of them but this is very close to one of them. Mine had two sliding lids and had stripping on it. One thing about the water cooler when you got a bottle of pop from it it was ice cold and put vending machines to shame. Also had a Pepsi vending machine.
This beat up W W 1 cross was found in the Christmas battle trench in France.....Sad that we battle against each other and serve the same Lord and Savior!.....It proudly is part of my World War 1 collection. Note that the Jesus shadow is still present......Definitely one of my favorite collectables!
My copy of "Elvis What Happened?" that I obtained from Sonny. [Elvis Presley's Body Guard
The tail lights on Elvis pink Cadillac have been replaced. I own one of the original that that has been converted to a night light.
Elvis loved Karate and first got interested in it in 1958. By 1960 he earned his black belt. Over the tears he had numerous Karate instructor. Between 1970 and 1974 he studied under Master Kang Rhee in Memphis. The pictured patches were designed by Elvis and Kang Rhee I obtained the two shown patches from Master Kang Rhee as well as four different signed and inscribed color photos. The one pictured here reads in part " To Rick- Elvis was a deeply religious person". In 1973 Elvis earned his 7th degree black belt!
This is one of Elvis' billfolds from my collection. Note the badge imprint. No there was no money in it!
This is the entrance to my TV programs memorbilla room at the other house. It was located in my basement. In it I had signed photos, TV props, scripts, toys, celebrity clothing celebrity owned items and so on from 50 years of TV! I started out collecting from all the programs from the 50s and 60s and decided to expand to 50 years on TV.
One of my real treasures......One of Gilligan's hats
that I obtained from him!