The gold watch of the richest passenger on the Titanic was sold at auction for a record amount

A gold watch found on the richest passenger on the Titanic has sold at auction for 1.175 million pounds (1.37 million euros), a record for an object related to the famous ship, according to the British auction house Henry Aldridge & Son.

This sum, paid by an American buyer, exceeded the estimate of £100,000 – £150,000 (€116,000 – €175,000) published before the sale.

It beats the previous record for a Titanic artefact at auction of £1.1m, set in 2013 for a violin, according to the auction house.

The violin case was sold for 360,000 pounds (420,000 euros) at the same auction as the watch, reports News.ro.

Engraved with the initials JJA, it belonged to the American businessman John Jacob Astor, who died at the age of 47 in the sinking of the Titanic in the early hours of April 15, 1912.

Considered one of the richest men in the world at the time, with a fortune of $87 million, the equivalent of several billion today, he drowned after seeing his new wife, Madeleine, board a boat rescue.

He was depicted in his last moments smoking a cigarette with another passenger, the American writer Jacques Futrelle. Both were among the 1,500 dead on the Titanic.

His body was found on April 22, 1912, along with his 14-karat gold pocket watch.

“The watch was fully restored after it was returned to the family and worn by his son, which makes it a unique piece of Titanic history and one of the most important watches in the history of the world’s most famous ship”emphasizes the auction house.

Read also: Unpublished images of the wreck of the Titanic, shot in 1986, released

Also read: The director of the movie “Titanic”: “The news about the implosion of the submersible Titan was not a surprise”

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