The gold watch worn by John Jacob Astor, the wealthiest passenger aboard the Titanic, has set a new auction record for the most expensive item of Titanic memorabilia. A private collector in the U.S. purchased the 14-carat gold Waltham pocket watch, engraved with the initials J.J.A., for $1.5 million. The watch was featured in the “Titanic, White Star and Transport Memorabilia” sale conducted by British auction house Aldridge & Son on April 27. Surpassing its high estimate of $150,000, the watch was among approximately 250 items up for auction.
John Jacob Astor, a prominent real estate developer and scion of the wealthy New York Astor family, perished at the age of 47 during the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. His marriage to a woman nearly 30 years his junior had stirred controversy, and he was returning to New York after an extended honeymoon in Europe and Egypt aimed at quelling gossip.
Astor was last spotted smoking a cigarette with author Jacques Futrelle, having ensured the safety of his wife, Madeleine Talmadge Force, and friend Margaret Brown in lifeboat four, both of whom survived.
His body was recovered on April 22 by the CS MacKay-Bennett, a cable-laying steamer repurposed as a recovery vessel by the White Star Line, the Titanic’s operator. Along with the pocket watch, items such as cufflinks, a diamond ring, a golden pencil, a pocketbook, and currency in various denominations were retrieved.
These possessions were returned to Astor’s son, Vincent, who later had the pocket watch restored and presented it to his father’s longtime secretary, William Dobbyn, in 1935. The Dobbyn family retained possession of the watch until it was consigned to auction in the late 1990s.
