T-minus to liftoff: the next Saturday market report Every Saturday evening — realized sales and notable listings across nine vintage references.
00hrs: 00min: 00sec
The Moonwatch, studied properly.
An independent collector’s journal of the Omega Speedmaster—history, references, market data, and the occasional piece finding a new wrist. Not affiliated with Omega SA or the Swatch Group.
Five long-form guides, quick Moonwatch tidbits, a mission-by-mission photo archive, price trends across nine references, and two market dispatches every Saturday — every claim built to be checked, every price labeled asking or realized.
Market Analysis
Two dispatches, every Saturday
The Speedmaster Gonzales™ Vintage Moonwatch Market ReportA quiet week for realized sales: zero verifiable auction or marketplace sales could be confirmed for any of the nine vintage references, while dealer asking prices stayed firm — Ed White and calibre-321 examples holding their levels and 'No NASA' 145.022-71s commanding a clear premium over standard pieces.
Browse the archive →
The Glass Case — what’s asking nowWhat sellers are asking across nine vintage references — checked by hand every Saturday morning. Asking isn’t selling.
See the Glass Case →
Explore price trends across nine references →
Market data is published for information and education — never as investment advice. Asking prices are what sellers hope for; realized prices are what buyers actually paid. Neither predicts the future.
Collector's Toolkit
Free instrumentsFive free instruments for the vintage Speedmaster collector — date a movement, identify a dial, run NASA’s 1964 gauntlet. No account, no cost.
The Journal
Five collector’s guides
Article I · HistoryA line drawn to the MoonFrom the CK 2915 of 1957 to NASA qualification and the watches worn on the lunar surface.
The Speedmaster’s history is best understood through the references that carried it forward: first as a racing chronograph, then as privately chosen astronaut equipment, and finally as qualified flight hardware.
Article II · Reference guideThe Moonwatch, reference by referenceThe cases, calibres, dials and details that distinguish each important generation.
A collector’s field guide to the visual and mechanical changes that separate the earliest broad-arrow pieces from the calibre 861 era, the long-running 3570.50 and today’s calibre 3861.
Article III · MarketReading the vintage marketHow condition, originality, provenance and venue shape value for buyers and sellers.
Asking prices are only one signal. This guide looks at realized sales, correct period components, service history and the reference-specific details that most often move value.
Article IV · OwnershipBuy well. Preserve better.Finding value, inspecting a candidate and maintaining a Speedmaster without erasing its history.
Practical notes on photographs, serials, service records, replacement parts, movement care and the line between thoughtful preservation and unnecessary restoration.
Article V · CuriosityThe Watch That Never Came HomeBuzz Aldrin's Speedmaster was the first watch worn on the Moon. Then, on its way to the Smithsonian, it vanished.
The verified story of the missing Moonwatch: what Aldrin's memoir says, the investigation that found nothing, the lawsuit that failed, and where the surviving flown Speedmasters can be seen today.
🎧 Also a 7-minute podcast episode — now on Spotify.
Moonwatch Tidbits
Quick studiesDid you know?
Short, sourced facts from the Speedmaster’s flight history — one card at a time.
The $82.50 space watch
NASA reportedly paid about $82.50 apiece for the chronographs it bought to qualify for spaceflight in 1964 — Corvette money, it was not.
Source: widely reported NASA procurement historyThe first Speedmaster in space wasn’t NASA’s
Wally Schirra wore his personal CK 2998 aboard Sigma 7 on October 3, 1962 — three years before NASA qualified the watch officially.
Source: NASA Mercury-Atlas 8 mission recordFourteen seconds, timed by hand
When Apollo 13’s crew needed a precise 14-second course-correction burn, Jack Swigert timed it on his Speedmaster. It worked.
Source: NASA Apollo 13 mission recordWhy hesalite, not sapphire
NASA specified an acrylic (hesalite) crystal: if struck, it wouldn’t shatter into free-floating shards inside the cabin. Safety, not luxury.
Source: NASA chronograph qualification criteriaThe last watch standing
Several brands’ chronographs entered NASA’s eleven-test qualification gauntlet in 1964–65. The Speedmaster was the only one to pass them all.
Source: NASA qualification test reportsSixty years ago this week
Gemini 11 launched on September 12, 1966 — Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon, with Speedmasters on their wrists for the record-altitude flight.
Source: NASA Gemini 11 mission recordThis week in Moonwatch history
Week of September 12, 2026.
“We choose to go to the Moon”
President Kennedy’s Rice University speech commits the nation to the lunar goal — the program that would put the Speedmaster on the Moon seven years later.
Go deeper: watch the speech (public-domain film) → · hear the audio → — via the JFK LibraryGemini 11 launches
Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon fly the record-setting Gemini 11 mission, reaching the highest Earth orbit yet flown by a crewed spacecraft. Speedmasters ride along.
Go deeper: Gemini 11 mission page → — via NASASigma 7 anniversary
October 3, 1962: Wally Schirra’s personal CK 2998 becomes the first Speedmaster in space. Watch for the anniversary post.
Go deeper: Sigma 7 mission page → — via NASA · our episode “The Watch That Went First” →Myths vs facts
Lore is part of the hobby — but it’s worth knowing which stories hold up.
Myth
“Neil Armstrong wore his Speedmaster on the Moon.”
Armstrong’s 105.012 stayed aboard the Lunar Module as a backup timer. The watch worn on the lunar surface was Buzz Aldrin’s — the one that later went missing on its way to the Smithsonian.
Check it: Armstrong’s watch at the Smithsonian → · our episode “The Eagle Has Landed” →Myth
“The Ultraman was a special Speedmaster model.”
“Ultraman” is a collector nickname for certain 145.012 references with an orange chronograph seconds hand — named for the Japanese TV hero’s color scheme. Omega never made it an official model.
Check it: the 145.012 in our reference guide →Myth
“We know the missing Moonwatch’s serial number.”
Serial numbers for Aldrin’s watch circulate online, but none is verified. The identification of the missing watch as his flown piece is conventional, not certain — treat any published serial as unconfirmed.
Check it: our full investigation → · our episode “The Watch That Never Came Home” →The Reading Room
October 2026 picks — interesting reads from elsewhere on the web. We link; we don’t copy: the one-line summaries below are our own words, and every article belongs to its publisher.
Space, Time, Technology
The Smithsonian’s curator of astronaut chronographs on sixty years of Speedmasters in space — including the quiet tug-of-war over who actually owned the watches the astronauts brought home.
via National Air and Space Museum · read the article →How the Speedmaster Became the Moonwatch
From racing chronograph to NASA-qualified icon: the full arc of the watch’s great second act, told through the people who made it happen.
via Hodinkee · read the article →Speedmasters in Space, Working for a Living
A pictorial run through Speedmasters at work on spacewalks, from Gemini to the ISS — with notes from a Johnson Space Center insider on how they’re actually used today.
via Hodinkee · read the article →Why we’re still obsessed with the watches astronauts wore to the Moon
On the familiar object that makes the Moon feel close — with the Smithsonian’s curator on why timekeeping was never NASA’s top priority, until suddenly it was.
via Popular Science · read the article →Where to see them
The surviving flown Speedmasters, where they’re on display today. Loans rotate, so confirm before traveling — and the full story, including the one that never came home, is told in the Journal.
National Air and Space Museum — Washington, DC
The Destination Moon gallery holds three flown pieces in one room: Armstrong’s Apollo 11 backup-timer watch, Collins’s 145.012, and Gordon Cooper’s Gemini V Speedmaster. Most of the museum’s 63 astronaut chronographs live in storage.
via Destination Moon gallery →Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex — Florida
Pete Conrad’s Apollo 12 Speedmaster — the third man on the Moon’s watch — has been shown in the Treasures Gallery in an Omega-supported exhibit, on loan from the Smithsonian. Call ahead before making the trip.
via Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex →Omega Museum — Biel/Bienne, Switzerland
Cernan’s Apollo 17 watch, Evans’s heat-flow-experiment piece acquired at auction in 2015, and Gordon’s Apollo 12 Speedmaster on loan from the Smithsonian — plus the gold Apollo XI commemoratives presented to Nixon and Agnew.
via OMEGA Museum — hours & admission →From the vaults
The ones you can’t go see — flown Speedmasters in storage, out on loan, or back from the wilderness. Same rules: we link; we don’t copy, and every article belongs to its publisher.
The one in storage
Dave Scott wore this watch on his first two lunar spacewalks during Apollo 15, then NASA passed it to the museum in 1977. The collection record’s current verdict: not on display — on loan or in storage.
via National Air and Space Museum · collection record →The ones out on loan
How 50-plus flown Speedmasters ended up at the Smithsonian — and how Michael Collins once wore a watch he thought was his until the serial number said it was Neil Armstrong’s. A 2015 snapshot; the loan rotation has shifted since.
via Smithsonian Magazine · read the article →The one that was stolen — and came home
Donn Eisele’s Apollo 7 Speedmaster was stolen from a Quito museum in 1989, surfaced at a Florida watch show and on eBay, then came home in 2017 when someone surrendered it to the FBI in Houston.
via Space.com · read the article →The flight archive · 1962–1975
The watch, in its element.
Six chapters trace the Speedmaster from Schirra’s personal CK 2998 to the watches of Apollo–Soyuz. Open an era to see the missions, photographs, and reference families within it.
Preparing the archive…
Where to see them
On public displayThe flown Speedmasters that survived are in public hands. Confirm current display status before visiting.
- National Air and Space Museum — Washington, DC
Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 Speedmaster ↗ · Michael Collins's Apollo 11 Speedmaster ↗ - Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex — Merritt Island, FL
Pete Conrad's Apollo 12 Speedmaster ↗ · Treasures Gallery - Omega Museum, Cité du Temps — Biel/Bienne, Switzerland
Museum visitor information ↗ · flown-moonwatch material and the gold Apollo XI commemoratives
From the collection — occasionally available
Collector to CollectorPieces surface here from time to time, collector to collector. When it’s gone, it’s gone.
OMEGA SPEEDMASTER PROFESSIONAL145.022-69 ST “Pre-Moon”Serviced · DON bezel · View on Chrono24