Science and Exploration

Apollo 17 Watch At Auction

By Keith Cowing
May 24, 2013
Filed under

Heritage Auctions: On the eve of an historic mission to the moon searching for potentially life sustaining water and nitrogen, Heritage Auctions conducted a $932,000 Space Exploration Auction, led by Apollo 17 Command Module Pilot Ron Evans’ Rolex watch, which realized $131,450, including 19.5% Buyer’s Premium.

Heritage Auctions: On the eve of an historic mission to the moon searching for potentially life sustaining water and nitrogen, Heritage Auctions conducted a $932,000 Space Exploration Auction, led by Apollo 17 Command Module Pilot Ron Evans’ Rolex watch, which realized $131,450, including 19.5% Buyer’s Premium.

The handsome, all-original, 1968-era Rolex Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master was the personal watch of Apollo 17 Command Module Pilot Ron Evans. He placed it into his Personal Preference Kit (PPK) which was taken to the moon by crewmates Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt aboard the Lunar Module Challenger while he orbited the moon in the Command Module America. It remained on the moon for approximately 75 hours on what, to this day, was the last manned lunar landing mission.

“A price like this on a watch as special as this Rolex shows that the fascination with our original astronauts, and space program, still runs very deep,” said Greg Rohan, President of Heritage Auctions. “Collectors also realize that artifacts of early NASA are in very finite supply. The first generation of astronauts was able to take pieces and parts of spacecraft with them, unlike today, where astronauts have to account for every nut and bolt.”

Further highlights of the Heritage Auctions sale included an Apollo 16 Lunar Module Flown Crewman Optical Alignment Sight (COAS), directly from the personal collection of Mission Commander John Young, used in Lunar Module and Command Module docking maneuvers, which brought $65,725, while Command Module Pilot James Lovell’s Apollo 8 Flown Crew Log was the subject of much intense bidding as it rose to a price of $56,762. Both prices include Buyer’s Premium.

“The world’s space program has come a very long way since the initial NASA pioneers went up,” said Rohan, “but we haven’t been back to the moon in nearly 40 years. The very best space artifacts, those that have been on the moon, will always be the most in-demand.”

Heritage Auctions, co-founded by Steve Ivy and Jim Halperin, is the world’s third largest auctioneer, and by far the largest auctioneer of rare collectibles, with annual sales more than $700 million, and 450,000+ registered online bidder members. For more information go to www.HA.com.

SpaceRef co-founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.