Image source: X/@LivesandLores
A gold pocket watch belonging to a Titanic victim sold for a record 1.78 million pounds at an auction in Wiltshire, setting the highest price ever paid for Titanic memorabilia, according to Henry Aldridge & Son. The 18-karat gold watch sold on Saturday belonged to Isidor Straus, the Macy’s co-owner who was travelling first class on the Titanic with his wife, Ida, when it tragically sank in 1912. The piece is engraved with his initials and the date of his 43rd birthday, according to the auction house. The 18-carat Jules Jurgensen watch, gifted to him in 1888, had stopped at 2:20 a.m., the moment the ship disappeared beneath the Atlantic, the auctioneers said.The New York Times reported that the timepiece fetched $2.3 million, surpassing the auction house’s previous record for Titanic artefacts — a pocket watch linked to the Carpathia’s captain, sold in 2024 for $1.9 million. The BBC noted that the Straus watch had remained within the family for generations before being repaired and restored by Straus’s great-grandson, Kenneth Hollister Straus.Straus’s body was recovered roughly two weeks after the disaster, while Ida’s remains were never found. Survivors recalled the couple refusing to be separated as lifeboats were loaded. As The Guardian reported, they were last seen sitting together on deckchairs, choosing to face their fate side by side — a moment later fictionalised in James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic. The old couple were depicted in James Cameron’s 1997 film “Titanic”, shown lying together as their cabin floods.A letter written by Ida on Titanic stationery, posted while she was on board, also sold at Saturday’s auction for 100,000 pounds according to the BBC, and $131,000 according to The New York Times. In it, she wrote: “What a ship! So huge and so magnificently appointed … they really are rooms.”Other items sold included a Titanic passenger list (104,000 pounds) and a gold medal awarded to the crew of RMS Carpathia (86,000 pounds). The auction totalled 3 million pounds.Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge told the BBC the record price underscored the enduring power of the Titanic story, calling the Strauses “the ultimate love story” and a testament to the lasting respect in which they are held.
