Astor’s Curse: Titanic Watch Fetches Record $1.5M

John Jacob Astor IV’s gold pocket watch that he wore on board the ill-fated Titanic during its maiden voyage in 1912 has sold for a record sum of $1,476,358 at auction. The financier and real estate developer’s initialed timepiece was retrieved from Astor’s body after he drowned when the ship sank on April 15th that year.
Astor, aged 47, went down with the Titanic alongside his pregnant wife Madeleine, who survived by boarding a lifeboat before him. According to myths about their ordeal in popular culture following the events portrayed in James Cameron’s Oscar-winning film ‘Titanic’, Astor reportedly helped his spouse onto one of these boats and then lit a final cigarette as he watched others disembark. The wealthy businessman subsequently retired inside to smoke another, at which point some witnesses maintain that his future spouse caught the parting tobacco along with his gloves.
Astor’s watch had originally been estimated by auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son in Wiltshire, England as being worth around $189,000 but it sold for almost eight times this amount during Saturday evening’s sale (May 3). It is the highest-valued item ever to be recovered from the wreckage of Titanic.
In addition to Astor’s watch, other items associated with the sinking ship were also auctioned off on May 2nd and 3rd at Aldridge & Son’s saleroom in Devizes, Wiltshire. Wallace Hartley’s leather bag containing his famous violin – which he played as Titanic sank beneath him – was sold for $454,949, whilst Astor’s own original passenger list detailing the layout of the ocean liner changed hands to a collector in Switzerland at a cost of over $37,000.
Aldridge & Son stated that after being retrieved from Astor’s body by divers working on behalf of his son Vincent following the tragedy, it was later given as an infant christening gift to William Dobbyn’s child (who had been a secretary for Astor). The watch then passed back into the possession of the Astors before undergoing restoration work.