Rebecca's Pick
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Christie’s is proud to offer the lifelong collection of wristwatches from Charles D. Friedlander, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, United States Army veteran, and a retiree from NASA after a distinguished career. Chuck graduated from West Point in 1950, then served as an Officer in the Korean War where he fought in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. During his time in Korea, one of Chuck’s main duties was to provide the daily briefings on the war to the commanding officers. This would foreshadow Chuck’s important involvement with NASA and the space program in years to come.

In 1963, Chuck joined NASA at Cape Canaveral. His first role was as a Briefing Officer. He would go on to become the Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director of the Kennedy Space Center and later as NASA’s Chief Briefing Officer in Washington, DC. Chuck returned to Cape Kennedy (formerly Cape Canaveral) as Chief of the Astronaut Support Office. In 1969, Chuck joined Bill Anders (Apollo 8) after Bill accepted Richard Nixon’s invitation to become the Executive Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council in the White House. Chuck served as Bill’s Executive Assistant until retiring from the White House in 1972, having been present during some of the most exciting and historic times in the program’s history.

Following his NASA career, Chuck was asked by Walter Cronkite to become his main briefer on all NASA activities. Chuck excelled in the role, again making use of his skills from the Army. He would remain close to NASA for the rest of his career and still does to this day.

During Chuck’s career, he briefed hundreds of VIPs at space launches and was directly involved with the space program including projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Chuck worked closely with many astronauts and developed lifelong friendships with them as well. His love for watches grew after he got his Rolex GMT-Master in the 1960s and from then on he became infatuated with stainless steel and titanium timepieces.


The present lot being offered is Chucks OMEGA Speedmaster X33.

OMEGA officially launched the Speedmaster Professional X-33 in March 1998, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The unveiling was conducted with a live satellite uplink to the Russian Mir space station, which already had pre-release prototypes of the X-33 aboard for final testing. The X-33 derives its name from the code name of a new space shuttle planned by NASA at the beginning of the 1990s. It fulfilled all the specifications established in over five years of tests with American and European astronauts, including professional pilots. This particular example comes on the OMEGA titanium bracelet.

According to the Archives of OMEGA the present watch was manufactured on September 17,1998 and delivered to the United States of America.