Titanic survivor’s life jacket sells for over $900,000 at auction

A life jacket worn by a Titanic survivor sold at auction for more than $900,000 on Saturday; It sold for a price well above expectations, underlining the enduring fascination with the stricken ship.

Believed to be one of only a handful of Titanic life jackets still in existence, the flotation device was used by first-class passenger Laura Mabel Francatelli during the ship’s sinking in 1912 and was the only one of its kind offered for sale at auction.

It sold to an anonymous telephone bidder at Henry Aldridge & Son auctioneers in Devizes, England, for 670,000 pounds, or about $906,000 including fees.

The final price far exceeded the estimated range of approximately $339,000 to $475,000.

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Other items sold at auction included the seat cushion of the Titanic lifeboat, which sold for approximately $527,000 and was purchased by the owners of the Titanic museums in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Branson, Missouri.

“These record-breaking prices demonstrate continued interest in the Titanic story and respect for the passengers and crew whose stories are immortalized in these memorabilia,” said auctioneer Andrew Aldridge.

Francatelli wore his lifejacket as he boarded lifeboat No. 11 after the Titanic, described at the time as “practically unsinkable,” struck an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland just before midnight on April 14, 1912, during its maiden voyage from England to New York.

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A rare Titanic artifact, a survivor’s life jacket, sold for more than $900,000 to a private bidder, auctioneers said. (BNPS)

He and seven other survivors from the same lifeboat then signed the document.

Francatelli, then 22, had boarded the Titanic in France while working as secretary to fashion designer Lady Lucy Duff Gordon and her husband Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon.

He later recalled being helped into the lifeboat and guided onto the deck while the lifeboats were lowered. Lifeboat No. 1, which had a capacity of 40 people, became controversial after it did not return to pick up other survivors from the freezing Atlantic waters.

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Francatelli wore his life jacket while boarding Lifeboat No. 1 after the Titanic struck an iceberg shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912. (BNPS)

The cream-colored life jacket, made of canvas fabric with cork-padded sections, was exhibited in museums in the United States and Europe.

Although the product was sold at a high price, it fell short of the Titanic souvenir record. In 2024, the gold pocket watch given to the captain of the RMS Carpathia ship, who saved more than 700 survivors, was sold for 1.56 million pounds, or approximately $2 million at that time.

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Titanic passenger Isidor Straus and his gold pocket watch are up for auction (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Saturday’s auction took place 114 years after the Carpathia arrived in New York with Titanic survivors on April 18, 1912.

Fox News Digital’s Kelly McGreal and The Associated Press contributed to this report.