[imagesource:wikipedia]
A gold pocket watch recovered from the remains of the Titanic’s richest man sold for a record-breaking £1.2 million (R28 million) this weekend.
The watch was sold on Saturday to a private collector in the United States at Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire, for the highest price ever paid for Titanic memorabilia, according to the auctioneers.
The watch’s original owner, tycoon John Jacob Astor, perished with the ship in 1912 at the age of 47 after seeing his new bride, Madeleine, board a lifeboat.
The previous highest amount paid for Titanic artefacts was £1.1m (R25 million) for a violin that was played as the ship sank – which sold at the same auction house in 2013, according to auctioneer Andrew Aldridge, who told the PA news agency that the prices fetched by the Titanic memorabilia at the sale were “absolutely incredible”.
“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 prominent member of the wealthy Astor family, John Astor was last seen ‘smoking a cigarette and chatting with a fellow passenger’ before the ill-fated ship went down. His body was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean seven days later and his 14-carat gold Waltham pocket watch, engraved JJA, was found.
“Astor is well known as the richest passenger [on] board the RMS Titanic and was thought to be among the richest people in the world at that time, with a net worth of roughly $87m – equivalent to several billion dollars today”.
At 11.40pm on 14 April 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg and started to take on water. At first, Astor did not believe the ship was in any serious danger, but later it was apparent she was sinking and the captain had started an evacuation after midnight, so he helped his wife into lifeboat 4.
The watch was passed by Astor’s son Vincent to the son of his father’s executive secretary, William Dobbyn.
The case for the violin was sold at the same auction as the pocket watch on Saturday for £360,000 (R8.3 million) including fees and taxes.
“The bag was forensically tested and corrosion deposits were recovered from the lock mechanism and metalwork and they were found to be consistent with it having been immersed in seawater. The bag is one of the largest pieces of luggage to have survived the disaster.
“It is a tangible link to the Titanic and represents an integral part of the Hartley violin’s journey from Titanic to the present day.”
Wallace Hartley was given the maple, spruce and ebony violin with the brown leather case by Maria Robinson in 1910. Two years later he was the bandleader on the Titanic for its doomed, maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.
[source:guardian]