Astronaut watches barely move. NASA-issued examples were government property; the flown pieces that went public did so through estates and consignments, one at a time. So when one does sell, the price is news — and the pattern across the results is worth reading carefully, not wishfully.
Flown or mission-used
Edgar Mitchell’s Apollo 14 Rolex GMT-Master 1675 “Pepsi”
$2,163,199 incl. premium (hammer $1,730,559)
Worn by Mitchell as Apollo 14 lunar module pilot — one of only two Apollo-flown Rolexes ever sold at auction, caseback engraved to his daughter Karlin. Per collectSPACE, the most expensive astronaut timepiece ever sold at auction.
Sources: collectSPACE · WatchGecko auction highlights
Dave Scott’s Apollo 15 Bulova prototype
$1,625,000 incl. premium (hammer $1,300,000)
The only privately owned watch worn on the lunar surface — Scott switched to it for EVA-3 after his Speedmaster’s crystal popped off on EVA-2. Bought by an anonymous Florida businessman. Discrepancy on the record: RR’s later retrospective recap cites $1,592,500 for the Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Chronograph; the $1,625,000 / $1.3M figures come from contemporaneous auction-night reporting.
Source: Space.com (auction-night report)
Ron Evans’s Apollo 17 experiment Speedmaster
$245,000 realized
Carried to lunar orbit mounted on the Apollo 17 Heat Flow and Convection experiment — hand-engraved by Evans himself — with its flown Velcro strap and flown space pen. Buyer: the Omega Museum. For context, the same reporting notes the watch alone changed hands at a Dallas auction in 2009 for $23,900 (house and sale name unconfirmed), and Evans’s flown strap separately fetched $11,950.
Sources: Space.com · Christie’s official December 2015 results
The gold tributes — BA 145.022-69
Omega presented numbered 18-karat gold Speedmasters to the Apollo crews at a Houston gala in November 1969. They were gifts, not flight kit — but at auction they are the most traded astronaut watches of all. Results are wildly provenance-specific:
Neil Armstrong — No. 17
$2,125,000 RR’s official figure
The highest price realized for any Speedmaster. Half the hammer went to charities chosen by Armstrong’s son Mark. Variant on the record: collectSPACE separately reported $1.7M hammer / $2,187,500 with fees; RR’s figure is stated as the auction-house result.
Source: RR Auction official recap
Wally Schirra — No. 8
$1,906,953.75 incl. fees (hammer $1,525,563)
Owned and worn by Schirra; not flown — don’t confuse it with his flown Sigma 7 CK 2998, which has never been offered at public auction.
Sources: ArtDaily · RR Auction recap
Michael Collins — No. 19
$765,000 premium treatment not stated in release
Source: Heritage Auctions press release
Gus Grissom
$375,000 with buyer’s premium
Posthumously presented; not flown.
Source: RR Auction #664 sale page
Alan Bean
$302,500 with buyer’s premium
Note: a gold Speedmaster No. 26 attributed to Bean reportedly sold at Bonhams New York in 2015 for $50,000 including premium — whether it is the same watch is unverified, so the two sales are reported without linking them.
Source: RR Auction #664 sale page
Pete Conrad — No. 12
$178,000 reported result — HK$1,397,000; Phillips’ official result page was not located
Source (pre-sale highlight): Phillips press highlights
Jack Swigert’s 145.022
$152,400 reported result — $120,000 hammer + 27% premium, per live-sale watchers; no official Sotheby’s result page located
Movement 29.117.154, completed April 9, 1970 — days before Apollo 13. Consigned by Swigert’s nephew.
Sources (pre-sale): Sotheby’s lot article · Fratello
Scott Carpenter — No. 6
$150,000 reported result — Heritage’s lot page confirms the watch’s identity but not the result
Source: Heritage lot page (identity)
Edgar Mitchell (gold tribute)
$142,664
From Mitchell’s personal collection; figure stated in RR’s official Armstrong-sale press release.
Source: RR Auction official recap
Gene Cernan’s Speedmaster Broad Arrow 1957
$68,707 premium status not stated
Modern steel/red gold piece, personally owned and worn — presented with his 2008 Rotary National Award for Space Achievement. Not his Apollo 17 flight watch; not flown.
Source: ArtDaily
Ron Evans’s unique 18K gold chronograph (1970)
$50,000 realized (est. $40,000–80,000; premium treatment not stated)
A one-off 18K gold chronograph on bracelet, with certification letter and box, “made for astronaut Ronald E. Evans.” Distinct from both his Apollo 17 experiment watch and his gold “Tribute” piece.
What the results say
This is an observation from the cited results — not a thesis, and not advice:
- Flown or mission-used steel watches run on their own curve: Ed White’s reported $35,500 in 1999 (house and sale name unconfirmed) → Donn Eisele’s reported $204,000 in 2007 (sale name unconfirmed) → Evans’s experiment watch $245,000 in 2015 → Scott’s lunar-surface Bulova $1,625,000 in 2015 → Mitchell’s Apollo 14 Rolex $2,163,199 in 2024.
- The gold tributes scatter widely by name: Collins $765,000 (2022), Schirra $1,906,954 (2022), Grissom/Bean/Evans $375,000–$296,738 (2023), Conrad ~$178,000, Swigert/Carpenter ~$150,000, Gordon $138,908 (2024), Mitchell $142,664 (2025), Armstrong $2,125,000 (2025).
- The defensible conclusion: results are provenance-specific — the astronaut, flight or wear status, documentation, box and papers, and sale context all move the number. The 2023 gold-tribute run is itself a small cautionary arc: five examples sold at space-memorabilia auctions averaged far above three that crossed at pure watch sales.
Parked — not sales
Watches the record discusses but that carry no verified public auction result — listed so they aren’t confused with the sales above:
- Buzz Aldrin’s ST 105.012 — lost in transit to the Smithsonian around 1971; no authenticated recovery. The full story is in The Missing Moonwatch.
- Wally Schirra’s flown CK 2998 (Sigma 7) — personally purchased and flown; no public auction result found. Don’t confuse with his $1.9M gold tribute.
- Gene Cernan’s Apollo 17 NASA-issued Speedmaster — no public auction found; NASA-issued watches were government property.
- Scott Carpenter’s Aurora 7 Breitling Cosmonaute — damaged by seawater during recovery; reported to remain in Breitling’s archives. No public sale.
- Gordon Cooper — no confirmed watch sale on the record.
Speedmaster Gonzales™ is an independent horology publication. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA, the Smithsonian Institution, Omega SA, or any astronaut or estate named here. Watch identifications are editorial commentary on the public historical record.