When the Titanic was sinking in the North Atlantic in the early hours of April 15, 1912, one small object captured the exact moment everything changed. A gold-trimmed pocket watch stopped ticking at 2:20 am, the moment the ship slipped beneath the water.
Its owner, Isidor Straus, a wealthy businessman and co-owner of Macy’s, was seen standing on the deck, arm in arm with his wife, Ida, as the ship sank. More than a century later, on Saturday, the same watch was sold at an auction in England for $2.3 million, according to the auction house Henry Aldridge & Son.
Gold pocket watch from Titanic sells for record $2.3 Million
The watch is made of 18-karat gold and carries Straus’s engraved initials along with the date of his 43rd birthday in 1888, according to the New York Times. This was also the same year he became a partner in Macy’s, the famous New York department store. Auctioneers say $2.3 million is now the highest price ever paid for any Titanic memorabilia.
The watch was recovered from Isidor’s body, around two weeks after the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912. Ida’s remains were never found. The watch stayed with the Straus family for more than a hundred years before finally going under the hammer at Henry Aldridge & Son Auctioneers in Devizes, England.
Titanic auction: A letter filled with wonder
Another item connected to the couple was also auctioned the same day, a letter Ida Straus wrote on Titanic stationery. It sold for $131,000. In the letter, addressed to a woman named Mrs Burbridge, Ida described the Titanic experience. “What a ship! So huge and so magnificently appointed. Our rooms are furnished in the best of taste and most luxurious, and they really are rooms,” she wrote.
Witnesses on the Titanic remembered Isidor and Ida standing together on the deck in their final moments. Isidor had been offered a seat on a lifeboat because of his age. He refused, insisting that other men should go first. Ida then refused to leave without him. They were among the very few first-class passengers who did not survive the tragedy, which claimed around 1,500 lives.
Isidor and Ida’s love even inspired a famous scene in James Cameron’s 1997 film “Titanic.” The scene shows an elderly couple embracing in bed as their cabin floods.
Apart from the letter and the pocket watch, two more items were auctioned. This included a passenger list and a gold medal awarded to the crew of the RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued more than 700 survivors. In total, the auction brought in $3.92 million, the NYT reported.
Henry Aldridge & Son has handled several high-value Titanic artefacts in recent years. Before the recent record sales, they had sold another pocket watch for $1.9 million in November 2024, the one gifted to the captain who responded to the Titanic’s distress call. They also sold a violin played on the ship for $1.3 million and a passenger’s letter for $120,000.