The gold pocket watch retrieved from the wealthiest passenger on the Titanic has sold for six times the asking price on Sunday, April 28. It fetched a record amount of £900,000 (Rs 9.41 crore). It equalled another Titanic artefact but after adding taxes and fees to the estimated price, the total cost goes up to £1.175m (Rs 12.29 crore). The watch belonged to the businessman John Jacob Astor and was estimated to sell for £150,000 (Rs 1.5 crore) before it went for auction in Wiltshire.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldrige described the total cost of the watch as a ‘world record’ for any artefact retrieved from the domed Titanic. The previous highest amount paid for a Titanic artefact was for a violin which was also sold for Rs 9.41 crore and after adding taxes and other charges, it surged up to £1.1m (Rs 11.5 crore).
According to the BBC report, 47-year-old Astor’s last act was to put his wife Madeleine in a lifeboat and smoke one last cigarette before going down with the ship. David Bedard, president of the British Titanic Society, said that unlike many of the Titanic’s watches, which were frozen in time on that fateful night, Astor’s watch was restored and won by Mr Astor’s son Vincent.
“To be able to see J.J. Astor’s watch, knowing it was in his pocket as he put his young, pregnant bride in a lifeboat and stepped back, knowing he wasn’t going to survive, is remarkable,” David Bedard added.
Each death from the infamous Titanic sink narrates a story. A violin case belonging to the man who led the orchestra on the deck as the ship went down in 1912 also fetched Rs 3.82 crore at an auction. It belonged to Wallace Hartley from Colne in Lancashire who along with his band played songs to calm the passengers as the ship sank. Harley went down with the ship but not before putting his violin back in its leather valise, which he strapped to himself, possibly for buoyancy.
Andrew Aldridge, managing director at Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, said, “You’ve got over 2,200 people on that ship, so you have over 2,200 subplots and 2,200 chapters to the story.” He further said that Titanic is arguably the most famous ship that ever sailed.
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