Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean's Playboy photos sell for $400,000

Images from Playboy magazine that were secretly placed on astronaut Alan L. Bean’s wrist‑mounted checklist during the Apollo 12 mission were sold at a Heritage Auctions sale for US $400,000 (about R$2 million). The checklist, used on the lunar surface in November 1969, contained detailed task instructions, hand‑drawn cartoons and the hidden Playboy photographs that crew members had slipped in before launch.

The same auction featured Bean’s moon‑used geological hammer, which fetched US $812,500, bringing the total of the sale of Apollo‑12 artifacts to roughly US $3.1 million. Bean, the fourth person to walk on the Moon, famously said, “Don’t ever come to the Moon without a hammer.” Heritage Auctions’ director of space exploration highlighted the strong demand for items that actually reached the lunar surface.