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Sotheby's to Auction Buzz Aldrin Family's 24 Watches

7/16/2026

Summary

Aldrin Watch Auction

U.S. Sotheby's is auctioning 24 watches from Buzz Aldrin's Family Trust in New York July 1-15, 2026, with live bidding on July 15 at 2 pm GMT.
The headline lot, an Omega Speedmaster 3861 Moonshine Gold, is estimated at $40,000–$60,000, with other pieces priced between $2,000 and $20,000.
Aldrin’s lunar Speedmaster is excluded because it vanished in 1971 after shipment to the Smithsonian and remains government property.

Summary

Aldrin Jury-Rigs

Buzz Aldrin used a Duro Rocket pen to jury-rig a broken circuit-breaker, enabling the ascent engine to fire.
He later wrote in *Magnificent Desolation* (2009) that the engine-arm breaker switch had snapped off, a vital lift-off component.
Houston Mission Control later reported no power reroute was possible, prompting Aldrin’s improvised pen fix.
A Gemini XII nylon window-wiping cloth fragment Aldrin kept was traced by NASA to yellow residue from Titan II exhaust.

Summary

Aldrin Flag Flight

Apollo 8’s command module includes a heat-shield plug that protected a screw on the aft ablative shield and delivered Bill Anders’s Earthrise photograph.
Buzz Aldrin’s Apollo 11 kit carried a 4 by 6-inch Soviet flag with U.S., Texas and New Jersey flags, confirmed by a provenance letter as having flown to the Moon to symbolize goodwill toward the USSR.
An extravehicular glove made for Gordon Cooper is included, illustrating the collection’s broader historic space hardware.

Summary

Aldrin Jacket Auction

ILC Dover’s aerospace division spent 5,000 hours and $1,000,000 to produce each full NASA pressure garment.
A Snoopy pin that flew on Artemis I in 2022, featuring the Charlie Brown beagle mascot—a NASA symbol since 1968—was presented to Dr. George E. Mueller.
Al Worden co-founded Still the Right Stuff in 2013, which made museum-quality Apollo jackets such as Buzz Aldrin’s patch-emblazoned jacket now on auction, showing vintage jackets’ fashion influence.

History

Historical Context

The 1999 Sotheby's sale of an original Apollo 11 flight suit marked the first high-profile auction of NASA hardware, a practice that resurfaced on July 20 2019 when Sotheby's sold three Apollo 11 video-tape reels for $1.82 million on the mission’s 50th anniversary. The trend follows the Smithsonian’s long-term display of the suits since 1971 and prompts tighter provenance controls.

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Aldrin Watch Auction

U.S. Sotheby's is auctioning 24 watches from Buzz Aldrin's Family Trust in New York July 1-15, 2026, with live bidding on July 15 at 2 pm GMT.
The headline lot, an Omega Speedmaster 3861 Moonshine Gold, is estimated at $40,000–$60,000, with other pieces priced between $2,000 and $20,000.
Aldrin’s lunar Speedmaster is excluded because it vanished in 1971 after shipment to the Smithsonian and remains government property.

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