Astronaut's Bulova goes for $1.3M

[marchone]

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/moon- ... -$1million

Link to auction house is embedded.

[93 Turbo]

Great news for astronaut Dave Scott, the drinks are on Dave J

[kfalk]

Wow - good for him. I didn't think it would fetch that much.

[marchone]

He was due to get something out of it. I never heard of him before this week.

[sierra11b]

Great news for the Colonel!

The father of my close friend I helped purchase the Apollo 15 35th anniversary LE was one of the rocket engineers on the Apollo 15 project. Just sent him the link and his response was

To the buyer: Don't clean that watch! There's about $3k worth of moon dust on it!

[River Rat]

This watch mite of been one of the watches Bulova submitted for testing trying to get the contract before Omega won it. Plus being a watch used in space with those two things makes this a one of a kind watch making it worth the price it sold for.

[Heuerville]

Blimey, $1.3m

Edit - apparently it went for $1.625m with the commission

[james80]

Awesome, moon dust, patina and a real astronaut's body cheese!!

[JBZ]

About double what they were estimating. Like I said in the other thread, most expensive Bulova ever.

[james80]

I thought the estimate was 50K?

[JBZ]

I thought the estimate was 50K?

I'm pretty sure the article was saying something along the lines of $600,000. I could be misremembering, though.

On edit: The CNN article I originally posted said bidding would start at $50,000, but one person they interviewed thought it would actually go for more than $600,000. The original Hodinkee article on this piece said the estimate was for $50,000.

At any rate, it went for a lot more than they were anticipating.

[Sidheguitarist]

The moral of the story? There are some seriously wealthy SOBs out there with interest in either watches, space exploration, or both. Maybe that Branson guy from virgin galactic/air bought it.

[marchone]

I'm betting on a tax-deductible donation to the Smithsonian.

[AtomicTom]

Incredible Wayne ! Out of this world in more ways than one.

[jeckyll]

That's a lot of scratch.

[eddiea]

http://www.thedivewatchconnection.com/f ... 37#p965737

[sinner1]

WTF? That is too much

[sierra11b]

The timing is interesting. I thought Astronauts were required to wear the Speedmaster but were allowed to take a back-up. So he wore three watches to the moon?

From the man who brought us the Sieger cover scandal this begs even more questions....

Did Bulova contact him prior to Apollo 15 for the one-off watch or did he contact them? Pretty smart if he did contact them considering he likely walked away with a lot of money from the sale.

Did he contact Bulova prior to the auction so that they could make the re-edition? Was Bulova shill bidding or the winning bidder?

All the glory with no cash has to be tough. With all the financial wrong doing going on these days I can't say I blame them. I think these heros deserved more than we gave them.

Either way, it makes me want the re-edition even more. Well played Bulova and Scott... well played.

[eddiea]

The timing is interesting. I thought Astronauts were required to wear the Speedmaster but were allowed to take a back-up. So he wore three watches to the moon?

From the man who brought us the Sieger cover scandal this begs even more questions....

Indeed ....
For those who don't know what the Sieger scandal was

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_15 ... p_incident

[Pasquale]

Whole company isnt worth that much.

[sierra11b]

Citizen is.

[JBZ]

Interesting additional information about the provenance of the watch. I will admit that I was questioning a couple of things since the auction occurred and Bulova announced the new piece based on Scott's watch.

For example, Bulova supposedly custom made this as a one off for Scott, so it was never in regular production - seems odd for a company that, as far as I know, generally mass produced its pieces and didn't do a lot of custom work (I could certainly be wrong about that).

The watch itself looks an awful lot like a Speedmaster - I honestly don't know what to make of that. When I first saw it, I figured Bulova probably produced a lot of these at the time to try and capitalize on the astronaut craze ("Buy an American made watch that looks like the one the Astronauts wore on the moon"). Scott happened to purchase one and used it as a back up. However, it turns out this was a one off made specifically for Scott - just seems odd.

Per the information linked to in the other thread, Bulova had tried to get NASA to adopt one of their designs, but was unsuccessful. Thus, at least back during the 1970's, Bulova had a vested interest in becoming part of the space race. There's money in being able to market yourself as having a role in space travel - just ask Omega. Also, per that same link, this watch was never specifically mentioned as having been worn on the moon.

Bulova's announcement of its new piece coincided with the auction of Scott's watch. Of course, this could have occurred because Scott contacted them and told them he would be auctioning it, but the timing seems rather...fortuitous. I'd be less intrigued if Bulova had made the announcement on the new piece a year or even six months from now.

All of this is just rambling on my part - I'm no conspiracy theorist. I have no reason to doubt that Scott's story is entirely true and that he simply told Bulova he'd be doing this so that they could coordinate the release of the new piece around the time of the auction. However, the story has just raised some questions in my mind.

[marchone]

Your questions are valid. I'm still waiting for the money angle to be reported. And not just Scott's. There's too much involved to be only one guy in it.

[JBZ]

Your questions are valid. I'm still waiting for the money angle to be reported. And not just Scott's. There's too much involved to be only one guy in it.

One thing I considered is that Bulova approached Scott prior to his moon mission and offered to make him a watch he could wear on the moon, which Scott accepted. However, if this had happened, Bulova would have most likely announced it back then and produced copies of the watch for sale immediately following the mission. Instead, no one seems to have known about this until this recent information about the auction came up. Again, odd.

I think I'm spending too much time thinking about this.

[marchone]

I think I'm spending too much time thinking about this.

It'll all go back to the Kennedy assassination.