An 18-karat gold pocket watch recovered from the body of one of the Titanic‘s wealthiest and most high-profile passengers is expected to sell for more than US$1 million at auction, according to a British auctioneering house.
The more than century-old timepiece belonged to Isidor Straus, who, along with his wife, Ida, was on board the infamous vessel when it sank in the Atlantic after striking an iceberg on its way to New York City on April 14, 1912.
In the days following the disaster, his body was recovered from the Atlantic, and his possessions were logged and returned to his son, Jesse, along with his other personal items. Among them was his engraved Jules Jurgensen pocket watch, which had stopped at 2:20 a.m., according to the auction house, around the time the Titanic is believed to have sunk.
Isidor and his wife’s final moments were memorialized in James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic as the elderly couple who clung to each other on their bed as the ship disappeared underwater. The auction house selling the artifact, Henry Aldridge and Son, noted this Hollywood connection on its website, adding that Ida is believed to have refused a place on a lifeboat, saying she would rather die by her husband’s side.
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Isidor is also believed to have refused a place on a lifeboat because there were still women and children on board, auctioneer Andrew Aldridge stated.
In an appearance on BBC Radio Wiltshire, Aldridge said the watch was “a phenomenal piece of memorabilia.”
The heirloom was passed down through generations before being restored by Kenneth Hollister Straus, the Straus’ great-grandson. The auction will take place on Nov. 22.
Family ties through time
In 2023, Stockton Rush, the CEO of deep-sea exploration company OceanGate, died alongside four others when the company’s Titan submersible imploded during an exploratory dive of the Titanic’s wreck. In an unbelievable connection, Rush was married to Wendy Weil, the great-great-granddaughter of Isidor and Ida Straus.
Singer-songwriter Mikaela Mullaney Straus, better known by her stage name King Princess, is also the great-great-granddaughter of Isidor and Ida Straus.
The Straus family is now selling the watch for the first time. It is touted to be one of the most expensive Titanic artifacts to ever go on sale. It will be auctioned off alongside a handwritten letter penned by Ida on board the ill-fated ship shortly after it departed from Southampton on April 10, 1912.
Written on Titanic embossed notepaper, it reads: “What a ship! So huge and so magnificently appointed. Our rooms are furnished in the best of taste and most luxurious.”
“Size seems to bring its troubles. Mr Straus, who was on deck when the start was made, said at one time it looked painfully near to the repetitions of the Olympic’s experience on her first trip out of harbour, but the danger was soon averted, and we are now well on our course across the channel to Cherbourg,” she added, referring to a collision between two ships, the H.M.S. Hawke and the R.M.S. Olympic in 1911.
Neither the watch nor the letter has ever been seen publicly before, the auction house stated.
Based on an engraving, it is believed Ida gifted the watch to her husband on his 43rd birthday in February 1888.
The couple died on the Titanic along with an estimated 1,520 other people, including first-class passengers John Jacob Astor, a prominent business magnate, and Benjamin Guggenheim, a member of the famous capitalist family who later became known for its philanthropy and contributions to modern art and aviation.
Ida’s body was never found.
Other items sold from the Titanic include a gold pocket watch that belonged to the captain of the Carpathia, the ship responsible for rescuing more than 700 Titanic survivors, which sold for 1.56 million euros, the violin played by the Titanic’s bandmaster, Wallace Hartley, as the ship sank, which sold for 1.1 million euros in 2013, and John Jacob Astor’s gold pocket watch, which sold in 2024 for 900,000 euros.
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