Applications for Swatch‘s most exclusive MoonSwatch ever have officially closed. The numbers are staggering.
From launch on 16 July through Wednesday evening, 1.2 million people filled out the form for a chance to buy the Mission to the Moon 1969. Only 1969 watches exist, so that’s more than 600 applicants for every single watch.
The Mission to the Moon 1969 is the priciest, gold-packed MoonSwatch Swatch and Omega have ever made. To be in with a chance, hopefuls had to pass a 32 question application called ESTA, short for Electronic Swatch Timepiece Application.
Some questions are open-ended, with no single correct answer. Things like “What would you eat on a trip to the Moon?” fall into that camp.
“The open-ended answers are carefully analysed and evaluated based on their creativity and originality,” a Swatch spokesperson told Blick.
The multiple-choice questions are a different story. Those have definite right and wrong answers, and applicants had to get every one correct to be considered. Swatch has now published the correct answers (here), so you can check how you did.
Applicants had 2 hours and 15 minutes to complete the whole form, timed deliberately to match how long Armstrong and Aldrin spent walking on the Moon in 1969. Other questions asked things like whether you’d ever gifted a president a gold desk clock (a reference to when Rolex CEO, Jean-Frédéric Dufour, visited President Trump).
The first winners will be notified as early as Friday (tomorrow), which marks the anniversary of the Apollo 11 splashdown.
I’ll admit, I like the theatre of it all.
If you missed the original news – the Mission to the Moon 1969 is a limited edition, individually numbered, MoonSwatch with dial, hands, crown and pushers made from Omega’s 18-karat Moonshine Gold, some of it reclaimed from vintage Omega components from 1969.
The price, $570 in the US and £520 in the UK, is based on the 1969 gold rate, not today’s. That means this watch contains gold worth well over $1000 at current prices.
Successful applicants get 48 hours to complete their purchase online at that retail price, before collecting the watch in person at the Swatch store they chose when applying.
If you didn’t apply, or didn’t make the cut, you’ll have to wait for the resale market. Given those odds, and that gold, I wouldn’t expect prices to stay anywhere near retail for long.
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