Space Memorabilia, My Photography,

A Robbins medallion is a personal memento made exclusively for the NASA astronaut. They are made by the Robbins Company, located in Attleboro, Massachusetts.

Astronauts who are in line for a flight, have the option of purchasing the medallions for themselves, family, and friends, as personal souvenirs. The medallions are made available only to the astronauts, no one else. They can either purchase a sterling silver medallion, or a 10k gold medallion. Gold medallions are far more expensive to purchase, thus their production numbers are much, much lower. Total production numbers vary for each mission. Silver medallions usually average somewhere around 150, while the Gold medallions average around 5.

At the conclusion of an astronauts flight, the medallions are sent back to Robbins, where they are engraved with the launch and landing dates on the back, polished, numbered, then returned to the astronauts. The dyes are later destroyed, and no more are ever remade. To date, only 3 medallions have ever been restruck: STS-51L, STS-107, and Expedition 7.

Regardless if they are flown or not, the low production numbers make them extremely desirable to space memorabilia collectors.

STS-95 Robbins Medallion

Christopher Sweet                            The Robbins Company                                            3/15/01

NASA Medallions/Coins - Dies & Cutters

For the NASA medallions/coins, our job is to reproduce in metal, the medallion / coin-sized versions of the patch designs for the Shuttle, and now, Expedition missions.  Our design department takes a NASA mission patch, and then "interprets" it from the viewpoint of a toolmaker/die cutter who must hand cut­ - design in reverse - the dies that are subsequently used to strike blank pieces of relatively thick (0.101") metal.  The amount of detail, the height of lettering, the areas that are to be polished, the areas that are to be oxidized (we call it coloring or shading), the areas that are to be textured, the overall shape of the design with respect to fitting it to the plastic holder box, the final projected weight of the medallion / coin, etc., etc., etc. are all factors that we must consider and deal with.  In addition we must create the design, and make the die, for the back or reverse of the medallion / coin, leaving the blank rectangular fields that take the engraved dates of launch and landing.

In terms of time frames we work backwards from the expected launch date of a given mission.  Struck, unfinished medallions / coins must be in NASA's hands 30 days prior to launch.  In order to satisfy this requirement we need to have the final, approved design in our possession 75 days (2 1/2 months) prior to launch (give or take a few days).  We receive the design, produce the die cutter sketches (obverse and reverse), produce the dies and cutter (note if the design is not perfectly round, we must create a custom cutter tool in the shape of the design - a cutter is used to remove the excess metal squeezed out in the striking process), strike the medallions / coins, and then ship them to NASA.  The most time consuming process is producing the dies and cutter, hence the long lead-time.  As one might appreciate, one wrong slip of the die cutter's handtool can send us back to square one (and, yes, this has happened).

Die Cutter Sketch (Howard Weinberger)

The two types of metal used for NASA coins/medallions are Sterling Silver and 10k Gold.

Often incorrectly referred to as solid silver, Sterling Silver is composed of 925 parts of pure silver and 75 parts alloy, usually Copper. In England, 925 is always called silver, not sterling. Each Sterling piece should show a "Sterling mark".

The word "Sterling" is the best known and most respected marking in use today. Pure silver alone is too soft for everyday use. Copper is the metal commonly used to give "Sterling" its added stiffness and wearing qualities. Sterling is often referred to as solid silver. It is composed of 925 parts pure silver in every 1000 - this proportion never varies - it is fixed by law.

Karat is a measure of the fineness of gold, 24 karat gold is pure gold. 18 karat gold is 18/24 gold (about 75% gold - three quarters gold). 14 karat gold is 14/24 gold (about 58% gold - a little over half gold). 12 karat gold is exactly half gold. 10 karat gold is 10/24 gold (only about 43.5% gold - less than half gold).

The method by which fineness of gold is expressed. Pure unalloyed gold is 24 karat. As an alloy metal is added (usually Copper), the karat value declines: 22k, 20k, 18k, and so on. The lowest grade of gold to carry a karat mark in the United States is 10k, or, in Great Britain, 9k. Most gold coins are 20k or 21k. Jewelry is commonly 9k to 18k. The word karat derives from the carob bean, used as a measure of weight in the ancient world. When spelled "carat", it refers to the weight of a precious gem and has nothing to do with the fineness of a metal in the United States.

STS-92 Silver and Gold Robbins Medallions

Pictured below is one of the original Expedition 7 Silver Robbins Medallions that was minted for the ISS crew. It was not noted until after the original distribution of medallions had gone out, that the wrong Cosmonauts name had been struck on the medallion. The name reads, S. Moschenko ( Sergei Ivanovich Moschenko ) . The correct name should be Y. Malenchenko ( Yuri Ivanovich Malenchenko ) .

Once the error was discovered, Robbins sent out a letter asking that the medallions be returned to the company so that they could be destroyed. Replacement medallions with the correct name on them were then minted and returned to the astronauts. 

Original Error Expedition 7 Robbins Medallion

Corrected Expedition 7 Robbins Medallion

Numbers are current to date