This extremely rare gold Omega Speedmaster once owned by Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins fetched a whopping $765,000 at auction
An extremely rare 1969 Omega Speedmaster owned by the late astronaut Michael Collins was sold for a whopping $765,000 last week at Heritage Auctions’ Fine Timepieces online auction. The gold Omega Speedmaster Apollo XI BA145.022-69 was expected to fetch somewhere close to $100,000, but the highly collectible and historically important timepiece’s final sale price exceeded everyone’s expectations. Ahead of the auction, there were rumors that Omega might purchase the timepiece for its museum; however, it turns out that the Apollo 11 astronaut’s Speedmaster was acquired by an individual collector. The name of the buyer hasn’t been revealed, although.
The astronauts who took part in the Apollo 11 mission wore stainless steel Omega Speedmasters during their trip to the moon. The Swiss watchmaker celebrated the success of the moon mission by issuing a limited edition of 1,014 Omega Apollo XI Speedmasters (reference BA145.022). The first two examples were presented to President Nixon and VP Agnew, though they refused to accept the gift and the two watches currently reside in Omega Museum in Switzerland. The next 28 watches in the series were given to NASA astronauts based on their tenure with the administration, including the #19 watch that was presented to Command Module Pilot Michael Collins was presented.
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