The gold pocket watch of the richest businessman aboard RMS Titanic, the gorgeous but ill-fated ship that sank with 1,500 people on it, sold for a record price. The watch belonged to businessman John Jacob Astor and fetched a cool $1.5 million, the highest ever for Titanic memorabilia. The watch was sold on Saturday to a private collector at Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire. About its original owner, the businessman went down with the ship in 1912 at the age of 47. It was only after he sent his pregnant wife, Madeleine, to safety on a lifeboat.
Astor was an affluent New York based hotelier worth $69 million, about $9 billion today. The watch was discovered along with his body almost seven days after he sank with the Titanic. The man was sharply dressed in a blue suit and brown flannel shirt. His watch bore the initials ‘JJA’ engraved on the watch, which was sewn onto his jacket. The 14kt 17 jewel Waltham pocket watch was in the possession of John Astor’s son William Vincent Astor who used the pocket watch till 1935 before gifting it to his godson, William Dobbyn, the son of Astor’s executive secretary.
Finally, in the 1990s, the Dobbyn family sold it to a collector. This historic horological piece has been displayed at the National Geographic Exhibition in Washington DC and Titanic Museum ‘The World’s Largest Titanic Attraction’ in Missouri, US. Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge told the PA news agency, “They reflect not only the importance of the artefacts themselves and their rarity but they also show the enduring appeal and fascination with the Titanic story. 112 years later, we are still talking about the ship and the passengers and the crew. The thing with the Titanic story, it’s effectively a large ship hits an iceberg with a tragic loss of life, but more importantly is 2,200 stories. 2,200 subplots, every man woman and child had a story to tell and then the memorabilia tells those stories today.”
A few months ago, another pocket watch belonging to the Titanic’s postal clerk sold at auction for $116,000. On another instance, a gold necklace made from the tooth of the extinct megalodon shark was also discovered in the wreckage of the Titanic. Guess the fascination with the doomed ship and everything on it is far from over!
