and was rewarded with a commission of about $15,000—ten percent of the anticipated proceeds. The remaining 300 were entrusted by the astronauts to a Houston-area stamp collector who arranged with a local printer to have an inscription stating that the cover had been carried to the Moon printed in the upper left. The printer discovered there were 298 covers, not 300; the stamp collector consulted Scott, who told him not to worry about it. One of Irwin's covers from the group of eight, with a shamrock design as its cachet, was given to Rhodes and one to the president of the Kennedy Space Center Philatelic Society; Irwin said in 1972 that he had retained the other six. Sieger notified his customers of the flown covers via a mailing, selling them at DM 4,850 (about $1,500 at the time), with a discount to those who bought more than one. He kept one for himself, and by November had sold the remaining 99. He numbered and signed the backs of the envelopes in the lower left as a token of their genuineness. Worden recalled in his book that he sent the agreed number of 44 covers to Herrick soon after returning from space. He also sent him 60 belonging to himself for safekeeping, and gave 28 to friends. Herrick consigned 70 covers to Robert A. Siegel, a prominent New York dealer. Siegel sold ten covers for a total of $7,900, receiving a commission from Herrick of 25 percent. Herrick sold three himself for $1,250 each and placed several on commission in Europe. In late October 1971, a potential customer for one of the Herrick covers wrote to NASA to inquire about its authenticity. On November 5, Slayton responded, saying NASA could not confirm whether it was genuine. He warned Worden to ensure that his covers would not be further commercialized. Worden wrote an angry letter to Herrick. In June 1972, Herrick instructed Siegel to send 60 covers to Worden in Houston, which he did by registered mail. Until this point, Siegel had assumed the 60 covers belonged to Herrick. Probably before they made an official NASA trip to Europe in November 1971, the Apollo 15 astronauts received and completed the paperwork necessary to open accounts in a Stuttgart-area bank to receive the agreed $7,000 payments. According to Scott's testimony, while they were in Europe, they heard the Sieger covers were being sold