The first Rolex watch worn on a Moon mission, a Rolex 1675 with a “Pepsi” bezel belonging to Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell, just sold at auction for $2.1 million (including buyer’s premium), setting a new world record. Mitchell was part of the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, the third-ever mission to land on the Moon, and the first ever to land in the lunar highlands. This is only the second Moon mission “flown” watch to come on the market.
In 2009, Apollo 17 Command Module Pilot Ron Evans’ Rolex GMT-Master was sold for the bargain price of $131,000. Evans’ watch is widely reported to have been bought by Rolex itself for the brand’s private collection. It is reasonable to assume Rolex may have also been the winning bidder for Mitchell’s watch. The auction house has said only that the winning bidder was “international.” There were 16 bidders in all during the heated session.
The GMT-Master was of course not Mitchell’s official watch for the Apollo 14 mission, but rather a personal possession. He was also equipped with a NASA-issue OMEGA Speedmaster. The NASA Speedmasters remain government property and are unlikely ever to come up for auction. The GMT-Master was originally produced by Rolex in 1955 for Pan-Am pilots flying new transatlantic routes who needed to keep track of two time zones.
It quickly evolved into the ultimate pilot watch, which subsequently also became popular with astronauts. The Moon is in fact now in a different time zone from Earth, known as Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC), being established by NASA. It has been reported that Rolex gifted GMT watches to NASA test pilots and astronauts in order to receive information about how they performed in space. Many astronauts consequently wore watches like this Rolex Pepsi on missions and at home.
Rolex also owns Apollo 13 Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert’s “flown” Pepsi GMT-Master Ref. 1675, which it displayed at Watches and Wonders earlier this year. In the 1960s Rolex debuted the Space-Dweller, now an extremely rare item, which was a rebranded Explorer 1016 test model with a special dial, made for the Japanese market for three years only. Could the Space-Dweller be revived at some point? Only time will tell….
