14 a
Taken by a camera mounted to the Molniya satellite

First B&W crude photograph of the whole Earth

Molniya, May 30, 1966

Vintage gelatin silver print on fiber-based paper, 20.6 x 25.4cm (8 x 10 in), original wire press photo, with “The Daily Telegraph” credit stamp dated “JUN 1966” and United Press International (UPI) photo caption dated “26th June, 1966” on the verso

14 b
Taken by a camera mounted to the Zond 5 robotic spacecraft

First photograph of the whole Earth during translunar flight recovered on film

Zond 5, September 18, 1968

Vintage gelatin silver print on fiber-based paper, 20.2 x 22.5cm, original wire press photo, with “The Daily Telegraph” credit stamp dated “JUN 1966” and United Press International (UPI) photo caption dated “26th June, 1966” on the verso
20.6 x 25.4cm (8 x 10 in)

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Lot Essay

14 a
[UPI caption] “The first full-disk photo of Earth claim”
What is believed to be the first full-disk photo of Earth from outer space has been sent by the Soviet Union to U.S. Astronomy magazine. Photo shows Earth as it appears from 25,000 miles, as taken by TV camera on Soviet communications satellite Molniya 1 and transmitted to Earth on May 30th. [...] Photos have been authenticated by Gerard Kuiper of the Lunar and Planetary Lab. in Tucson, Arizona. Photo shows, sun-lighted part of the northern hemisphere from West Siberia in the East to North Americain the West and from the North Pole to the Indian Ocean and the Sahara in the South. The picture caption said that “clouds cover about 80 percent of the surface”.

14 b
[UPI caption] This view of Earth was taken last September 21 from a distance of about 55,800 miles by a camera mounted on the Russian spacecraft Zond 5. The unmanned Soviet craft was recovered in the Indian Ocean after circling the Moon. In right foreground can be seen the continent of Africa. The picture was made available by TASS, the Soviet news agency.

On September 18, 1968, Zond-5 became the first spacecraft to circle the Moon and safely return to land on Earth. A malfunction of the cameras apparatus prevented it from photographing the Moon but the spacecraft took B&W photographs of the Earth from a distance of about 90,000 km which were recovered with the spacecraft and not radiotransmitted, the first of their kind.
Apollo 4 in November 1967 was the first space mission to recover on film spectacular (color) photographs of the whole Earth seen in crescent from about 10,000 miles but was not a translunar flight.