How Jeff Stein ended up with 3 watches formerly owned by astronaut John Glenn

jaspers · Dec 12, 2019

JwRosenthal
I’ve been to a few estate sales that left me with the sick and sad feeling of loss and loneliness. I used to actively collect records and record collections can tell you much about a person’s tastes and personality. I usually cherry pick like most, but there was one collection in particular that I felt was so well curated that I bought the entire lot as the thought of breaking up this persons life’s collection just felt wrong. They had newspaper articles about the recordings and hand written notes about their perceptions and thoughts about the music -slipped into the jackets. He truly loved his music and listened intently. I came to find through his notes that his name was Kent, and I still have 90% of Kent’s records in my collection and they are still loved- I feel a nice tribute to Kent.

Beautiful story! This is what can make collecting larger than life: a truly well curated collection can live on past its collector. Indeed a wonderful tribute to Kent that his collection has been a joy to other collectors as well.

JacksonPollock · Dec 14, 2019

diggin5
That's what I thought at the time, and it was pretty beat up. No one at the house had any history on them or specific provenance, other than they were in the home when they opened the doors to sell everything. Literally... everything. You could buy his socks and toothpaste. It was actually a little sad, and I left without buying anything at all because it felt disrespectful after about an hour.

Estate sales are generally sad events. Bunch of random people rummaging through someone else's belongings personal items. The dealers themselves can be shady people too. The things I overlook when trying to get a good deal.

donashby · Dec 14, 2019

Lazy_Lightning
The Breitling 809 owned by John Glenn sold for an astonishing $156k. The Marlon Brando Rolex went for $1.9 MM.

https://www.phillips.com/auctions/auction/NY080119

I seem to remember that the Breitling sold for around 12000.00 at the estate sale, so the buyer did really well there!

Lazy_Lightning · Dec 14, 2019

donashby
I seem to remember that the Breitling sold for around 12000.00 at the estate sale, so the buyer did really well there!

$12K would be a steal for that watch even if hadn’t been owned by John Glenn.

jaspers · Dec 16, 2019

Lazy_Lightning
$12K would be a steal for that watch even if hadn’t been owned by John Glenn

You sure? As a cosmonaute 809 owner I would love to believe prices have gone up that much. Granted, the BoR bezel and AOPA dial certainly would put it in the upper echelons sans the John Glenn provenance. Have you seen other auctions/forums where similar Cosmonautes have sold for similar amounts?

Lazy_Lightning · Dec 17, 2019

jaspers
You sure? As a cosmonaute 809 owner I would love to believe prices have gone up that much. Granted, the BoR bezel and AOPA dial certainly would put it in the upper echelons sans the John Glenn provenance. Have you seen other auctions/forums where similar Cosmonautes have sold for similar amounts?

Cosmonautes in general aren't all that rare. The all black, which was only made in 1963, is very rare.

The best way I can put on a value on the watch is that if you had one in the same condition, I'd give you $20K for it and feel like I did ok. If you offered me the watch for $12K, I"d ask if you had a few more because I'd take them too.