Isidor Straus’ pocket watch from Titanic sinking fetches $2.3 million at auction
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A gold pocket watch owned by one of the most famous passengers who died on the Titanic was sold at auction for a record price of $2.3 million.
Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy’s, brought the watch with him on his ill-fated journey to New York with his wife after a trip to Europe.
“Pocket watches are incredibly personal items,” said Andrew Aldridge, managing director of Henry Aldridge and Son, where the watch was sold last Saturday.
“Every man, woman and child passenger or crew member had a story to tell, and 113 years later they are being told through the objects they own,” Aldridge added. “Elements like these keep the story alive and bring us closer to the memory of one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.”
TITANIC PASSENGER’S RARE GOLD POCKET WATCH MAY BE THE MOST EXPENSIVE ARTIFACT EVER SOLD
Titanic passenger Isidor Straus and his gold pocket watch were sold at auction. (Bettmann via Getty Images; Henry Aldridge & Son/BPNS)
The 18-carat gold Jules Jürgensen pocket watch was an 1888 birthday gift to Straus from his famous wife Ida, who refused to board the lifeboat and died on the boat with her husband.
“My place is with you,” he reportedly told her. “I lived with you. I love you and I will die with you if necessary.”
Instead, her maid was put into a lifeboat and given Ida’s fur coat to keep warm.
The pocket watch is thought to have stopped when the ship was submerged at 2:20 on the morning of April 15, 1912.
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Titanic passengers Isidor and Ida Straus (Bettmann via Getty Images)
Their love was depicted in James Cameron’s Oscar-winning epic “Titanic”, with the couple holding hands on the bed in their cabin as the ship sank.
The watch was removed from his body and handed over to his family in time for the auction this month.
The ill-fated White Star ship RMS Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic in 1912. (Hulton Archive)
The pocket watch broke the sales record for Titanic memorabilia, a year after another pocket watch, given to the captain of the RMS Carpathia by John Jacob Astor’s widow and two other survivors as thanks for their rescue, sold for $1.97 million at the same auction house.
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“Some of the prices seen at this sale indicate continued interest in this amazing story,” Aldridge said.
