At 96 years old, Buzz Aldrin is the last surviving member of the Apollo 11 crew and the astronaut who helped cement the Omega Speedmaster as one of the most culturally significant watches in history. Now, the Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. Family Trust has consigned 24 of his personal watches to Sotheby’s Space Exploration auction in New York. Online bidding has already closed, and the live auction took place on July 15 at 10 a.m. ET, just five days before the 57th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
The collection spans decades of Aldrin’s post-Apollo life and includes serious tool watches, later Speedmasters, personal gifts, and a group of souvenir quartz pieces that function as a time capsule of a very specific kind of celebrity. Estimates run from $2,000 at the entry level up to $60,000 for the collection’s headline lot.
Before anyone asks the obvious question: no, the Speedmaster watch Buzz Aldrin wore on the moon is not in this auction. That watch, the ref. ST105.012 disappeared while being transferred to the Smithsonian in 1971 and has never resurfaced. It technically belongs to the U.S. government, which means it could not cross an auction block regardless. What the Family Trust has consigned instead is 24 watches spread across 14 lots that document the watches Aldrin wore, collected, received as gifts, and accumulated over the decades following the mission that made him a permanent figure in human history. The provenance here is personal continuity rather than lunar claim, and for the right buyer, that is more than enough.
Here are the five lots worth paying closest attention to…
#1. Omega Speedmaster 3861 Moonshine Gold
The headline lot of the collection is a modern Speedmaster 3861 in Moonshine gold, reference 310.60.42.50.99.002, which Aldrin received earlier this year. Moonshine gold is Omega’s proprietary 18-karat gold alloy developed specifically for its color stability and resistance to fading, which distinguishes it from standard yellow gold.
On any other wrist, this would be a significant modern Speedmaster. On Aldrin’s wrist, with the connection it implies to the man who made the original Speedmaster an icon, it becomes something else. The estimate of $40,000 to $60,000 reflects that distinction.
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#2. LeCoultre Ref. 2643 Shark Deep Sea
This is the most compelling watch in the entire collection for anyone who cares about mid-century tool watches independently of the space provenance. The LeCoultre ref. 2643, better known as the Shark Deep Sea, dates to 1970, the year after Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface. It is a reverse panda chronograph that also functions as a dive watch, with patinaed cream lume on the hands and indices, pump-style pushers, a rotating coin-edge dive bezel with a black aluminum insert, an inner tachymeter scale, straight faceted lugs on a 40mm stainless steel case, and a tri-compax subdial layout.
It arrives mounted on a JB Champion five-row bracelet, the same brand that made the mesh bracelets Apollo-era astronauts favored for their Speedmasters. Aldrin has described it as a treasured item in his personal collection for many years. At its estimate of $10,000 to $20,000, it is arguably the best value in the auction.
#3. Omega Speedmaster Professional Ref. 3590.50
The Speedmaster Professional ref. 3590.50 is significant because of what it represents in Aldrin’s relationship with the watch. Having lost the original Moonwatch to the Smithsonian transfer, Aldrin acquired this example himself decades later.
The ref. 3590.50 is an early version of the model introduced in 1988, identifiable by the long S and r in the Speedmaster dial printing. At its estimate of $8,000 to $12,000, it is barely a premium over what anonymous examples achieve, which makes the personal provenance essentially free. For a Speedmaster collector, that calculus is almost impossible to ignore.
#4. Omega Speedmaster X-33 Gen 2
The X-33 Gen 2 in this collection carries a specific and current significance. It is the same reference, 318.90.45.79.01.001, that the Artemis II astronauts recently wore during their mission around the moon, making it an active piece of NASA heritage rather than a historical one.
The blank caseback on Aldrin’s example is typical of NASA-issued units, distinguishing it from retail versions, which carry the space-qualified engraving. Its $4,000 to $6,000 estimate had already been exceeded by early bidding before the live sale began, which is a straightforward market confirmation of the lot’s appeal.
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#5. The Box of Eight Souvenir Watches
The eight quartz souvenir watches housed in an imitation-crocodile display case are the most idiosyncratic lot in the collection and, in some ways, the most personally revealing. The group includes a “Toy Story 3″ watch, a Pixar named Buzz Lightyear after Aldrin, and a piece from the elementary school that bears his name.
These are not watches with horological significance. They are objects that document a life lived in the public eye over six decades, accumulated through the kind of personal moments and institutional gestures that accumulate around anyone who has done what Aldrin did. At the estimate of $3,000 to $5,000 for all eight, it buys a strange and genuine piece of post-Apollo American history.
Featured image: Sotheby’s
