Editor’s Note
A gold pocket watch belonging to Titanic passenger Isidor Straus has sold at auction for £1.78 million, setting a new record for any item associated with the 1912 maritime disaster.
A watch belonging to a passenger aboard the Titanic at the time of the ship’s disaster has been auctioned for a record price. The gold pocket watch of Isidor Straus, who perished in the Titanic accident, was sold at auction for 1.78 million pounds, approximately 21 crore rupees. This is a record, as no item associated with the Titanic has ever fetched such a high price before. Isidor Straus and his wife Ida were among the 1,500 people who died when the Titanic sank on April 14, 1912. The ship was traveling from Southampton, England, to the American city of New York.
A few days after the Titanic disaster, when Isidor Straus’s body was recovered from the Atlantic, his belongings included an 18-carat gold Jules Jurgensen pocket watch. Since then, the watch remained with the Straus family. It was sold on Saturday at Henry Aldridge & Son Auctioneers in Devizes, Wiltshire, UK. A bidding war ensued among wealthy individuals, driving the price up to 21 crore.
Straus, a victim of the Titanic disaster, was an American businessman, politician, and co-owner of Macy’s department store in New York. He was counted among the city’s wealthy at the time. It is said that his wife was offered a place in a lifeboat, but she refused to leave without her husband, and both died in the sinking.
Straus’s gold pocket watch stopped at 02:20. This was the precise moment the Titanic slipped beneath the waves. It is believed that Ida Straus gave this watch to her husband as a gift for his 43rd birthday in 1888. It is engraved with Straus’s initials. The watch was repaired and preserved by Isidor Straus’s great-grandson, Kenneth Hollister Straus.
According to Imperial Reporter, the gold pocket watch fetching 1.78 million pounds at auction has made it the most expensive Titanic memorabilia. This sale surpassed the previous record of 1.56 million pounds set last year for another gold pocket watch. That watch was given to a rescue captain who saved 700 passengers from the sinking ship.