THOUGHT LOST FOR 50 YEARS, THE OMEGA SPEEDMASTER WAS ONE OF A LIMITED NUMBER PRESENTED TO NASA LUMINARIES IN 1969
By Steve Lansdale
Among the most important factors when determining any item’s popularity among collectors are the rarity and provenance. If something is limited in number and availability, or was previously owned by someone important, the demand can soar. Such is the case with an 18k gold Omega Speedmaster Professional wristwatch that will cross the block in Heritage’s Watches & Fine Timepieces Signature® Auction on June 3, 2025.
The watch stands on its own merit as an exceptional timepiece, but what really makes it a treasured keepsake is that it was presented by Omega to astronaut Russell L. “Rusty” Schweickart, who served as the lunar module pilot for Apollo 9, logging more than 240 hours in space in March 1969. Apollo 9 was the third manned flight of the Apollo series and the first to include the lunar module. Before joining NASA in 1963, as part of the third group of astronauts selected for the program, Schweickart worked as a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and served as a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot.
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The gold Omega Speedmaster Professional wristwatch presented to astronaut Russell L. ‘Rusty’ Schweickart in 1969 and now available in Heritage’s Watches & Fine Timepieces Signature® Auction on June 3, 2025.
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Schweickart in 1971
Along with several other NASA astronauts, including Alan Shepard, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, Schweickart received the watch at an astronaut appreciation banquet in November 1969 at the Warwick Hotel in Houston. According to Omega, the commemorative gold Speedmaster watches were created as a tribute to those who first walked on the moon, and to those whose missions and work in the space program made an eventual lunar landing possible. The first two timepieces in the series were meant for President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew, who declined the valuable gifts. Today, those two watches can be found in the Omega Museum in Switzerland. The watches numbered 3 through 28 were personalized and presented to the astronauts in NASA’s space program.
Omega has a long history with the world of space exploration. In 1965, NASA declared the Speedmaster “flight-qualified” for all piloted missions, and in the summer of 1969, the model became the first watch worn on the moon, earning its enduring “Moonwatch” nickname.
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The personalized case back and original band of Schweickart’s gold Omega Speedmaster
“The event in which we were given the watches … was just after the Apollo 12 mission,” Schweickart says. “We had all been wearing Omega watches, but they were the silver ones. The gold watch is a real beauty.”
Unlike some keepsakes, Schweickart’s gold Speedmaster did not become a memento tucked away in a glass case for display purposes; he wore it regularly – until he didn’t. When he witnessed a fellow pilot get his wedding ring caught while exiting a plane, Schweickart stopped wearing any jewelry. The watch offered in this auction was placed in a desk drawer, where it remained for more than half a century.
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Schweickart during Apollo 9’s dual spacewalk, with Earth and fellow astronaut David R. Scott reflected in his visor. Photo courtesy Russell L. ‘Rusty’ Schweickart.
“At [the time of the other pilot’s injury], I stopped wearing jewelry altogether, watches and everything else,” Schweickart says. “So mine ended up in a drawer, frankly, just stored, and I lost track of it for a long time. I thought I’d lost it, and it was only earlier this year when I rediscovered [it].”
Schweickart’s watch, the 25th in Omega’s commemorative series for NASA’s groundbreaking space explorers, is engraved with his full name and this brief but weighty message: “to mark man’s conquest of space with time, through time, on time.”
STEVE LANSDALE is a staff writer at Intelligent Collector.