"The 18-carat Jules Jurgensen gold watch belonged to Isidor Straus, who perished on board the Titanic with his wife Ida, when the ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912. Straus received the engraved watch as a gift on his 43rd birthday in 1888. The object remains frozen in time having stopped at 02:20, when it was submerged in the ocean water."
"Born into a Jewish family in Otterberg, Bavaria, in 1845, Straus emigrated to the US with his family in 1854. He would eventually go on to become a partner in Macy's, the New York department store, and he served as a US Congressman representing New York, for one year after winning a special election. Though the Strauses were offered lifeboat seats due to their age when the Titanic began to sink, they refused and were last seen alive on the deckchairs."
"The Aldridge and Son sale also included several other items of Titanic memorabilia that together brought in £3 million ($3.93 million). A letter by Ida Straus that she had written on Titanic stationary fetched £100,000 ($131,089). A Titanic passenger list was purchased for £104,000 ($136,333), while a gold medal awarded to the crew of the Carpathia by rescued survivors sold for £86,000 (112,737)."
An 18-carat Jules Jurgensen gold pocket watch belonging to Isidor Straus fetched £1.78 million ($2.33 million) at auction. The watch stopped at 02:20 when it was submerged during the Titanic sinking in 1912. Straus's body and the watch were recovered from the Atlantic in the days after the disaster; Ida Straus's body was never recovered. The timepiece had remained in the Straus family until its sale at Henry Aldridge and Son Auctioneers in Devizes, England. The sale set a new record for Titanic memorabilia, surpassing a gold watch from John Jacob Astor that sold for £1.175 million in 2024. The auction totaled about £3 million and included an Ida Straus letter, a passenger list, and a Carpathia crew medal.
Read at ARTnews.com
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