One small pen for one giant fee: Buzz Aldrin’s mission-saving felt-tip sells for over $850,000

Aldrin said the pen used to fix a broken circuit-breaker helped him and Neil Armstrong to return to the Earth. Photograph: Neil Armstrong/AP

The felt-tip pen Buzz Aldrin used to fix a broken circuit-breaker and escape from the moon in 1969 has sold at auction in New York for more than $850,000 (£630,000).

The dented silver plastic Duro Rocket pen – used by the second man on the moon to save Neil Armstrong and himself from being “stuck on the moon for ever” – had a sale price estimated by Sotheby’s at between $800,000 and $1.2m and went for $857,600 after being pursued by five bidders. The victor got the broken piece of circuit breaker, too, as part of the lot. Both came from Aldrin’s personal collection.