Lunar scoop
Scoops were used to collect soil samples. Several different scoop designs were used during the Apollo program. A shovel-like trenching tool was also used on one mission. Apollo 17 photograph AS17-146-22371.
It was a tradition among Apollo mission commanders to present an artifact from their flight to their back-up commander. Following the completion of the Apollo 14 mission to the Frau Mauro area of the moon, Commander Alan Shepard presented this lunar scoop he used on the lunar surface to his back-up, Gene Cernan. It would be an historic exchange between the first American in space with the last human to walk on the moon.
Shepard and fellow astronaut Ed Mitchell spent nearly a day and a half on the moon, and over nine hours exploring its surface. With the scoop attached to an extension handle, both astronauts used it to collect a variety of lunar samples. There may be a good reason why the extension handle is not included with it. As every golfer worldwide (and many space collectors) knows, Apollo 14 was the famous mission where Alan Shepard secreted (some might say smuggled) the head of a six iron golf club and a couple of golf balls into the lunar module for an impromptu experiment about how far a golf ball would travel on the moon. Well, the club shaft he used was the extension handle from the lunar scoop! After hitting the golf balls, but not for "miles and miles and miles" as he claimed, he took the extension handle and used it as a javelin, thus creating the first "Lunar Olympics" event. Certainly an historic item with association to two of America's most widely known and respected astronauts. From the personal collection of Captain Gene Cernan accompanied by written authentication by Cernan.
Text: https://historical.ha.com
