Clyde Tombaugh Discoverer of the 9th Planet, Pluto at Telescope

Description

Later in  2015 the New Horizons NASA probe will arrive at Pluto after a 9 year journey.
Its discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh, died in 1997 and his ashed are now on board the probe.
In 1996 before he died,
Clyde mailed me this original photo taken of him in 1943 at the University of Kansas Observatory.
I made prints from the original which he then autographed for me.
Other than mine, there are no others that I know about,
although he did ask me to print some extra ones (about 30) for his family.
I never knew whether or not he ever signed those or not.
So is Pluto a planet, or is it a ham sandwich?
Pluto was discovered in 1930 by the then-24-year-old Clyde Tombaugh, while working
at the Lovell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ, for Percival Lowell's widow.
He had been hired to search for Lowell's mysterious "Planet X".
Upon the discovery of a second Pluto-like planet orbiting the Sun at 68 AUs from the Sun in 2005,
the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted in 2006 to create a third classification of planets, the "Dwarf Planets",
since Pluto did not fit into the "Terrestrial Planets" category (rock and iron) of the inner solar system,
nor into the "Jovian Planets" category
of the outer gas giants.
So Pluto was not designated "not a planet anymore", rather it was merely reclassified as a "Dwarf Planet".
Pluto has 5 moons and is 1,400 miles in diameter.  The New Horizons probe is scheduled to reach Pluto in 2015.
It carries the ashes of its discoverer, Clyde W. Tombaugh.
If you buy this print, you will have a true keepsake, because I do not have that many,
and will preserve the majority of them for my son and those will not be released to the public.
Authenticity guaranteed.
14 day refund policy, buyer pays the return shipping, 20% restocking fee.
(Your photo may not be the exact photo shown in the listing, but one nearly identical.)
Combining Domestic Shipping Rates
For
domestic shipping
within the U.S,
combining shipping is an easy calculation.
Simply place items in the cart and then check out.
It will automatically calculate your discounted shipping rate.
You only pay for the shipping of ONE photo (.99), and each additional photo is only .99 more.
For most other items sold on Ebay other than photos, the weight of additional items changes greatly with a second item.
But since photos are practically weightless, then this is really not an issue.
Combining International Shipping Rates
International shipping
calculations are trickier, however, since the price varies depending on the country being shipped to.
You only pay for the shipping of ONE photo, whatever that calculation turns out to be depending on the destination,
and each additional photo is only .99 more.
When you place these items in your cart, it gives you the option to send me an invoice.
Once you do that, I can adjust the shipping cost down to a single item, and then return the invoice to you, and then
you pay only that amount.
You will know your shipping cost before you make the final decision to buy multiple items.
A Word About Certificates of Authenticity  (COAs)
Thank you for your interest, but "no, we do not believe in COAs, and neither should
anyone else".
Nor should you be placing your trust in them either, as a
COA does not prove anything.
A COA is signed by someone you do not personally know, could probably never find again, and who may or may not be an expert in anything.  Also, the person who is issuing the COA has an interest in selling you the item, so of course they are going to "certify" that their item is "authentic".
Additionally, people have issued COAs on our autographs as though they were their pieces originally---all the more reason to avoid COAs.
In the case of most of our items, there is more than just a signature----there is an entire sentence. This was done specifically to help the buyer
to see more handwriting and to know that the item is real. Forgers may be able to write someone's name and occasionally fool people; however, trying to forge an entire sentence in someone else's handwriting is nearly impossible.
If you are seeking COAs with your autographs, then the question you should be asking yourself is this:
“What does the COA do for me?
If your answer is, “it proves that the autograph I am buying is authentic”, then you are very much mistaken.
A collector needs to educate himself as to what the handwriting of the person he is collecting looks like, and then he will know if it is real or not by his own knowledge.
Do not leave this to someone else to do for you. You need to know that your item is authentic because
you
have done your homework----not because some piece of paper signed by someone you do not know and who wants to sell you something
says
it is authentic.
If you have not done your homework, and if you have not researched and are familiar with the handwriting of the person whom you are collecting, then with all due respect,  then
you do not know what you are doing and have no business collecting autographs
.
Placing your faith in COAs to serve as your “proof” that your item is real is irresponsible and quite risky.
Houses and cars are issued titles---not autographs.
So for these reasons, we do not issue COAs.   We do sell a lot of items however, both on ebay and off, and our prices will not stay low forever.   Once the astronauts start passing away, and they are as we speak,
then these prices will go higher.
I hoped that this helped you to understand our field a little better.  G
ood luck to you building your space autograph collection.