Up For Auction: Apollo 12 Astronaut Richard Gordon’s Omega Speedmaster Professional BA145.022-69

Another astronaut's commemorative gold Speedy for sale

April 23, 2024

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Another gold commemorative Omega Speedmaster Professional Apollo 11 1969 “Tribute to Astronauts” is coming up for auction. This one belonged to NASA astronaut Richard F. Gordon Jr. (1929–2017).

Image: RR Auction

Gordon’s commemorative gold Speedmaster Apollo 11

Omega presented only 34 of these watches to NASA astronauts in 1969 and the years after. Occasionally, these gold Speedmaster models gifted to the astronauts turn up at an auction. Gordon’s number 20 (out of 1,014 gold Speedmaster Apollo 11 1969 watches) will go up for auction later this month at RR Auction.

Richard Gordon was part of the third group of astronauts that NASA selected in 1963 for the Gemini and Apollo programs. With 4,500 flying hours under his belt, Gordon was an excellent pick. His first flight was in 1966 as a pilot on the Gemini 11 mission. He also did two spacewalks (EVA) on this mission, totaling two hours and 41 minutes.

Richard F. Gordon wearing his Speedmaster — Image: NASA

Apollo 12 and Apollo 18

Then, in 1969, NASA astronaut Gordon was the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 12 team. This also meant that he didn’t land on the Moon or walk on it. Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean (whose Speedmaster sold for US$302,000 at auction precisely a year ago) did land in the “Oceans of Storms” and walk there. Meanwhile, Gordon orbited the Moon doing photography work for possible future landing sites. Initially, NASA also scheduled Gordon for Apollo 18, and he would have been able to do a proper Moon landing and walk then. However, as you probably know, this mission was canceled because of budget cuts by the US government.

Image: RR Auction

A delayed gift

Omega presented this beautiful 18K gold Omega Speedmaster Professional Apollo 11 1969 edition to all the active NASA astronauts at the time (as well as US President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew, who had to decline due to legal restrictions). The first 25 of these gold Speedmasters were offered to the astronauts during a banquet dinner in Houston, Texas, on November 25th, 1969. Interestingly, the members of the Apollo 12 crew were absent (but on the list of guests) as they had to quarantine after their mission until December 10th, 1969. Consequently, Bean, Conrad, and Gordon received their gold Speedies at an unknown date.

Gordon’s Rolex Day-Date 1803 — Image: RR Auction

Gordon’s other watch was also a post-Apollo 12 gift

Unfortunately, no images of astronaut Gordon wearing his gold Speedmaster Professional Apollo 11 1969 model are available. Still, as you can see in the pictures, the watch shows clear signs of wear. The accompanying letter is not dated, so whether this watch had other owners/wearers afterward remains unclear. Instead, we find a lot of images of Gordon wearing his steel Speedmaster during missions and work and also this later Rolex Day-Date ref. 1803. Rolex gifted this watch to him shortly after the Apollo 12 mission. Gordon’s Day-Date was auctioned last year by RR Auction (here) and fetched US$36,541.

Image: RR Auction

An error in the engraving

One interesting thing to note is that the engraving on the case back contains an error. Each astronaut’s name is above the “to mark man’s conquest of space with time, through time, on time” quote, and below it are the missions he took part in. However, on Gordon’s watch, his name is misspelled. It reads “Astronaut Richard R. Gordon” instead of “Astronaut Richard F. Gordon.” The accompanying letter signed by Gordon mentions this mistake. We have seen other errors in the engraving of these “Tribute to Astronauts” watches, so it’s not the first or only time this has happened.

Image: RR Auction

Number 20 out of 1014

Gordon’s Omega Speedmaster Professional Apollo 11 “Tribute to Astronauts” is number 20, right between the watches of Apollo 11 crew members Michael Collins (number 19) and Buzz Aldrin (number 21). Just for the sake of it, let me include the complete list of 34 18K gold Speedmasters that were presented to the astronauts, including those posthumously gifted to the Apollo 1 crew.

#3 Al Shepard (Mercury-Redstone 3, Apollo 14)
#4 Gus Grissom (Mercury-Redstone 4, Gemini 3, Apollo 1)
#5 John Glenn (Mercury-Atlas 6, STS-95)
#6 Scott Carpenter (Mercury-Atlas 7)
#7 Gordon Cooper (Mercury-Atlas 9, Gemini 5)
#8 Wally Schirra (Mercury-Atlas 8, Gemini 6A, Apollo 7)
#9 John Young (Gemini 3, Gemini 10, Apollo 10, Apollo 16, STS-1, STS-9)
#10 Ed White (Gemini 4, Apollo 1)
#11 James McDivitt (Gemini 4, Apollo 9)
#12 Pete Conrad (Gemini 5, Gemini 11, Apollo 12, Skylab 2)
#13 Thomas Stafford (Gemini 6A, Gemini 9A, Apollo 10, Apollo-Soyuz Test Project)
#14 Jim Lovell (Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8, Apollo 13)
#15 Frank Borman (Gemini 7, Apollo 8)
#16 David Scott (Gemini 8, Apollo 9, Apollo 15)
#17 Neil Armstrong (Gemini 8, Apollo 11)
#18 Gene Cernan (Gemini 9A, Apollo 10, Apollo 17)
#19 Michael Collins (Gemini 10, Apollo 11)
#20 Dick Gordon (Gemini 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 18)
#21 Buzz Aldrin (Gemini 12, Apollo 11)
#22 Donn Eisele (Apollo 7)
#23 Walter Cunningham (Apollo 7)
#24 Bill Anders (Apollo 8)
#25 Rusty Schweickart (Apollo 9)
#26 Alan Bean (Apollo 12, Skylab 3)
#27 Deke Slayton (Apollo-Soyuz Test Project)
#28 Roger Chaffee (Apollo 1)
#1001 Stu Roosa (Apollo 14)
#1002 Ed Mitchell (Apollo 14)
#1003 Jim Irwin (Apollo 15)
#1004 Al Worden (Apollo 15)
#1005 Charlie Duke (Apollo 16)
#1006 Ken Mattingly (Apollo 16, STS-4, STS-51-C)
#1007 Ron Evans (Apollo 17)
#1008 Jack Schmitt (Apollo 17)

As you can see, the NASA astronauts who only flew later missions (Apollo 14–Apollo 17) received their watches later. Therefore, there were numbers reserved for these. Meanwhile, the Speedmaster Professional BA145.022-69 in yellow gold also became available to the market (also numbered) with a different engraving on the case back.

Image: RR Auction

The Omega Speedmaster Professional ref. BA145.022-69

I think the Omega Speedmaster Professional “Tribute to Astronauts” needs no further introduction. We’ve covered it several times when examples have come up for auction and also wrote an “Ultimate Guide To The 1969 Speedmaster Apollo 11” article.

It’s a 42mm gold variation of the then-current steel Moonwatch ref. 145.022 with the same caliber 861. The red bezel is made of aluminum, the dial is made of solid gold, and the hour markers are made of onyx. The bracelet (ref. 1116) tapers from 20mm at the end links (ref. 575) to 14mm at the clasp, and the original crown is gold plated (weirdly enough).

This commemorative watch came in the famous crater box for the market, while the astronauts received it in the beautiful rectangular box above — Image: RR Auction

The estimate is US$100,000+

RR Auction has set the estimate to more than US$100,000, which is as accurate as it gets, I believe. Results in the past have shown a wide range (Wally Schirra’s commemorative gold Speedmaster went for nearly $2 million, but Jack Swigert’s went for “just” $152K), so there are no guarantees for this one.

The auction for Richard F. Gordon’s Speedmaster will be open for initial bids until April 25th. After that, those who placed them will be eligible for the final round of bidding on the 26th. At the time of publishing, the price is up to US$51,793. If you’d like to find out more, visit the auction page here.