Buzz Aldrin’s Collection Of Rare Watches Are Going Up For Auction

By Elliot Nash - News

Updated: 14 July, 2026

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Readtime: 7 min

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• Sotheby’s is auctioning a selection of 24 watches from the Edwin Aldrin Family Trust as part of its 2026 Space Exploration sale in New York.
• The collection includes several Omega models, led by a limited-edition Moonshine Gold Speedmaster estimated at USD$40,000–$60,000.
• Aldrin’s missing lunar Speedmaster is not included, but the sale traces the watches he owned and collected after Apollo 11.
• Online bidding is available ahead of the live auction, which begins on 15 July at 2pm GMT.

Buzz Aldrin travelled to the Moon inside one of the most complicated machines ever built, but he still needed a watch strapped to his wrist. Now, collectors have the chance to own one from his personal collection thanks to a Sotheby’s auction.

The collection runs from steel and gold Omega Speedmasters to dive watches, dress pieces and a case filled with quartz souvenirs gathered throughout his travels.

Among the Sotheby’s auction’s 134 lots are objects with a more direct connection to spaceflight, including mission documents, spacecraft material and the broken circuit breaker tied to one of Apollo 11’s most precarious moments. But the hero of the auction is Aldrin’s collection of watches, 24 of them to be exact. A spacecraft fragment may have travelled farther, but the watches make an enormous technological achievement feel personal enough to fit around your wrist.

But before you get too excited: the Omega Speedmaster he wore on the lunar surface is not among the lots in Sotheby’s 2026 Space Exploration auction. That watch was lost in transit while being sent to the Smithsonian in 1971.

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Why Buzz Aldrin’s Omega Collection Matters Beyond The MoonWatch

Buzz Aldrin clearly likes Omega, although separating personal taste from public identity becomes difficult when you are the man who made the Speedmaster the first watch worn on the Moon.

The most obvious example in Sotheby’s sale is a limited edition Speedmaster 3861 in Moonshine Gold, presented in like-new condition with its original box and papers. Made in 2026 with a 42mm gold case, champagne dial and matching bracelet, it carries an estimate of USD$40,000–$60,000. Obviously, his 2026 Speedmaster watch did not go to space. As one of the latest Speedmasters owned by the astronaut who permanently changed what the name meant, it’s a symbolic connection rather than an operational one.

His stainless-steel Speedmaster Professional from around 1990, however, sits much closer to the familiar Moonwatch formula. Sotheby’s estimates it at USD$8,000–$12,000, but the note included with the watch is what gives this particular example its weight.

Aldrin describes it as a continuation of his passion for watch collecting, roughly two decades after the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Unlike the newer Moonshine Gold Speedmaster, this older example comes with a clearer account of where it sat within his collecting life. That may not give it lunar provenance, but it does make it feel more personal.

The broader collection suggests Aldrin’s relationship with Omega did not stop with the traditional hand-wound chronograph. There’s also a titanium Speedmaster X-33 “NASA”, a Seamaster Professional GMT, a Speedmaster Solar Impulse and several dressier Constellation and De Ville models, plenty of which carry estimates in the mid-four figures. If you’ve got the money, there are a few different ways to buy into Aldrin provenance without reaching for the gold Speedmaster.

That range is what makes the Omega group more interesting than a simple pile of Moonwatches. The Speedmaster may have followed Aldrin for obvious reasons, but Omega also appears to have remained part of how he was presented to the world long after Apollo 11. The Moon landing made the association permanent. The auction shows how far it carried afterwards.

It also shows us where he turned to next.

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The Watches That Reveal More Than the Speedmasters

The most revealing watch in Aldrin’s collection may not be an Omega at all.

His Citizen Promaster Hyper Aqualand carries an estimate of USD$2,000–$3,000 and shows the kind of wear missing from the newer Moonshine Gold Speedmaster. Aldrin made considerable use of the watch, which combined an electronic depth gauge, thermometer, water sensor and several warning functions when it launched in the mid-1980s.

You might not realise how closely diving and astronaut training have been connected. Aldrin became the first astronaut to use neutral-buoyancy training to prepare for his Gemini XII spacewalks, helping demonstrate its value for working outside a spacecraft. Diving later became one of his passions. The Citizen doesn’t carry the same prestige as a gold Speedmaster, but it looks closer to the type of watch made to do a job, then keep doing it again and again.

Then there’s the entirely different story being told by the Bulova Accutron Eagle Pilot Automatic Watch. Produced in Aldrin’s honour, it carries his engraved signature and Apollo 11 title on the caseback. Sotheby’s says this particular example was likely sent to him for design approval and appears never to have been worn, with protective plastic still attached. Estimated at USD$2,000–$3,000, it sits somewhere between personal possession, commemorative object and brand tribute.

On the more light-hearted end of the auction sits a case of eight quartz souvenir watches, estimated at USD$3,000–$5,000. The group includes pieces linked to Russian aerospace organisations, the Mir space station, Buzz Aldrin Elementary, Toy Story 3 and other stops in Aldrin’s post-Apollo life, all housed together in an imitation-crocodile presentation case.

Individually, they’re unlikely to excite the same collector as a Speedmaster. Together, they look more like a real personal collection. A slightly odd assortment tied to where Aldrin travelled, the organisations he encountered and the objects presented to him along the way.

That’s what separates these watches from the obvious Omega lots. The Speedmasters explain how the world saw Buzz Aldrin. The dive watch, commemorative pieces and slightly odd quartz souvenirs show some of what he chose to keep once the cameras moved on.

How to Bid in Sotheby’s Space Exploration Auction

Sotheby’s 2026 Space Exploration auction runs in New York from 1 to 15 July, with 134 lots spanning flown mission material, signed photographs, spacecraft fragments and Aldrin’s personal watches. Online bidding is available ahead of the live auction, which begins on 15 July at 2pm GMT.

Estimates range from USD$2,000–$3,000 for the Citizen and Bulova to USD$40,000–$60,000 for the Moonshine Gold Speedmaster. These are auction estimates rather than expected sale prices, and final bids are likely to shift as the live sale approaches.

Since the Speedmaster Aldrin wore on the lunar surface is lost to history, collectors are bidding instead on the life that followed it. The Omegas that became part of his public identity, the dive watch that was used properly and the souvenir pieces he chose to keep.

The lost Moonwatch may remain the object everyone wishes were here. These watches tell the story of what Aldrin wore, collected and held onto after he came home.

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