Apollo 11 'Lunar Sample Return' Bag

On July 20th, Sotheby's New York organized a unique space exploration-themed auction to commemorate the 48th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. One of the hot-ticket items, a zipped bag coated with moon dust, went for $1.8 million. Although the former owner of the bag is presumably ecstatic, NASA is not. The agency recently lost a lengthy legal struggle to recover the item from a private collection.

Neil Armstrong used the bag, which is stamped with the words "Lunar Sample Return," during the first manned journey to the moon in 1969. According to Erin Blakemore of Smithsonian.com, the astronaut packed the bag with moon pebbles in order to convey them back to Earth.

Although the bag's $1.8 million selling price is nothing to scoff at, it was actually a bargain. It was expected to sell for between two and four million dollars, according to Sotheby's. The bag didn't even come close to matching the price of Sotheby's most expensive space travel memento, the Soviet Vostok 3KA-2 capsule, which sold for $2.9 million.

Price: $1.8 million