Watch worn on the moon is up for sale - for $1 million

A Bulova lunar watch is set to go under the hammer, with a guide price of $1 million. The extraordinary asking price is due to the fact that this is the only privately-owned watch ever to have been worn on the moon - when astronaut Colonel David Scott stepped out onto the surface of the moon wearing it in 1971. It still bears the scars from the trip.

All the astronauts are given NASA-issued watches, which remain the property of the government. In 1971 Commander Scott received a NASA Omega watch like the rest of the crew of Apollo 15, and he used it on the first two trips he took on the moon's surface.

However, on the third trip, the crew were spending longer on the surface of the moon than any previous mission. It was even more important to have an accurate measure of time, so Scott could be certain his crew did not run short of oxygen, water and battery power. He decided to wear his own watch alongside the Omega, as a backup.

Now, at the age of 83, Scott has decided to sell his watch. He has also written a letter confirming its background story and mission use. Scott was the seventh man to walk on the moon, and the first to operate the lunar rover. Official photographs show him wearing it on his return to Earth, and it bears the scars from exposure on the Moon, splashdown and recovery.

Space auctions

The watch is up for auction in Boston on October 22, when the auctioneer estimates it will fetch up to $1 million. It seems like an awful lot to pay for a watch, but there is a major collectors market for items used in space.

Bonhams says that over the years it has sold a number of highly prized space items. In 2011 it sold Alexei Leonov's space suit - worn by the Apollo-Soyuz project commander in 1975 when Soviet and US astronauts shook hands in space. It fetched $242,000.

In the same auction it sold written notes from the Apollo 13 mission, by James Lovell and Fred Haise, establishing the final burn required to bring the mission home. The single sheet sold for $111,000.

The watch is expected to fetch an even bigger premium, because the other watches worn on the moon remain the property of NASA, and while many of them have been kept and worn by the astronauts, NASA says they remain the property of the government, and therefore cannot be sold at auction.

But with an estimate of $1 million, you have to ask whether this watch can really command such a massive premium. What do you think? Is it worth it?

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