An auction of 11 MoonSwatch Moonshine Gold box sets is on track to raise £400,000 or more for Orbis International, an organisation that fights avoidable blindness and vision loss around the world.
Omega created special suitcases, each containing all 11 Mission to Moonshine Gold watches, and is selling them via a Sotheby’s online auction.
Each case went live with an estimate of CHF 5,000 – 10,000 (£4,500 – £9,000), but bidding has driven the price of every lot above CHF 30,000.
All eleven box sets have all been associated with a global city and home to a Swatch boutique: Sydney, Beijing, London, Paris, etc.
A case for New York City is currently the most expensive, with bidding reaching CHF 42,000 (£37,700).
That is an average price of around £3,430 per watch. They retail for just £220 and are trading at around the £350 mark on the secondary market.
Paris’s suitcase has a high bid of CHF 38,000 and London’s is currently selling at CHF 35,000.
There are a few unique features for the suitcases. Each contains a golden monocle with the Omega x Swatch logo, and a one of a kind coin engraved with the three letter aviation code from their displayed city (such as JFK for New York).
This same code is engraved on the side of all watches within the suitcase for that particular city.
Bidding at the Sotheby’s online auction started on February 12 and will end on February 24, the date of the next full moon.
On the same date, the world is expecting to see the release of a MoonSwatch with a Snoopy dial, with Swatch hoping it will approach the level of hype of the original bioceramic Speedmaster homage when it launched in 2022.
