A very spacey Rolex “Pepsi” sold for more than 2 million euros

His name was Edgar Dean Mitchell. A Texan, an American astronaut who died in 2016, but also and above all the sixth man to have walked on the Moon. A rare privilege, even for the pioneers of NASA's space conquest. Among many other memories of a very space-based life, his watches will have survived him, and some were sold at the end of October 2024 during a Space Auction by RR Auction across the Atlantic. Alongside the Omega Speedmaster used by Jean-Loup Chrétien during the Mir Aragatz mission (sold for $106,500), we could thus afford the American astronaut's personalized Bulova Accutron ($10,000). On the face of its World Time dial, the city of Houston was written in orange, instead of the usual black Chicago.

But the star of this space auction will undoubtedly have been one of the rarest and most historic Rolex GMT-Master Pepsis in the world: the one worn on the wrist by Edgar Mitchell during the Apollo 14 mission. One of the two only Rolexes used during these missions to have been auctioned to date. Indeed, if the watches provided by NASA astronauts were Omega Speedmasters, very often these ex-fighter pilots carried with them a second personal watch, in a way a backup watch. And these great superstitious people often wore the one that had accompanied them in flight in the past. In the case of Edgar Mitchell, he wore his personal Rolex GMT-Master Reference 1675 during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, during which he would be the sixth man to set foot on the Moon. This watch engraved on the back “Worn by Cdr. E. Mitchell on Apollo 14, 1971, To Karlin—My Daughter,” appears in the archive images, on the right wrist of her suit, when equipping herself as on board the command module.

Generally speaking, the Omega Speedmaster is and remains the Moonwatch par excellence, which can also be admired on the old NASA astronaut suits exhibited at the entrance to Mission Control in Houston. It must be said that these endowment watches remained in principle the property of the government. Unlike this Rolex GMT-Master “Pepsi” Lunar sold for more than 2 million euros, being one of the rare models from the crown brand to still have faced the vacuum of space. Just like those of Mitchell's teammates, Stuart Roosa and Ron Evans, who also wore Rolex GMT-Masters during the Apollo 14 and Apollo 17 missions. In the past, the first Rolex GMT-Master Reference 1675 “MoonWatch” appeared at auction, that of Ron Evans, was then sold for $131,450. A wise figure, compared to the $1.5 million raised by the Bulova chronograph worn on the lunar surface by Apollo 15 commander Dave Scott, also sold at RR Auction in 2015.