He’s a jeweller by profession, but collecting space artefacts is his hobby

A gem and jewellery businessman here has a rare collection of autographs of astronauts starting from Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to Sunita Williams. To top it all, he has also purchased a small moon rock and a piece of land on the barren satellite along with certification.

For Hiren Zaveri, 43, it was philately that drew him to space and astronomy. With the help of relatives in New York and some friends, who were into philately, Zaveri has over the years, collected an enviable collection of stamps on space, along with autographed photos of astronauts.

Needless to say, his close friendship with NASA officials has helped him to a great extent in keeping this hobby alive.

When Indian origin US astronaut Sunita Williams came to Gujarat, Zaveri met her and collected the batch which she wore on her right shoulder during her visit to the International Space Station.

Among Zaveri's collections are three hand-painted and enamelled NASA emblems of the Apollo 10, 11 and 35 missions, issued by the US space agency during the 35 anniversary of the Apollo space shuttle.

He also has a one-rouble coin made from the metal of the spacecraft in which Yuri Gagarin travelled to space. The Soviet government minted 10,000 coins from the metal of Gagarin's space shuttle and Zaveri is the proud owner of one of the coins.

On September 25, 2007, Zaveri also purchased a land on the moon. The land was purchased from the Lunar Registry office at New York. He had also a rare moon rock weighing 0.056 grams, which is also certified.

His photographic collection includes autographed pictures of Gagarin, Neil Armstrong and several others up to Sunil Williams and panoramic pictures with Buzz Aldrin's signature embossed in gold.

Besides these, he also has a collection of special envelopes released by the Indian Postal department, like Rocket Mail and Rocketgram.

Zaveri also has many books on space and regularly consults them for gaining information on space artefacts on sale across the globe.

He says he developed the hobby during his teenage years. "My uncle Bhadresh Zaveri (70) stays in New York and had this hobby of collecting something rare. He came to know that I also had developed the same hobby. Whenever he comes to Surat he gives all his rare collections to me. He introduced me to some of his friends who had the same hobby, and later I started purchasing artefacts from them," says Zaveri.