A gold pocket watch presented to the captain of a boat which rescued more than 700 passengers from the Titanic has sold for a record-breaking £1.56 million.
It was the highest amount ever paid for Titanic memorabilia, auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son, of Devizes, Wiltshire, said on Saturday, and went to a private collector in the US.
The previous record was set in April when another gold pocket watch, recovered from the body of the richest man on the ship, John Jacob Astor, sold for £1.175 million at the same auction house.
Both sale figures include fees and taxes paid by the buyer, the auctioneers said.
Mr Astor was 47 when he went down with the ship in 1912, after seeing his new wife Madeleine on to a lifeboat.
The watch sold on Saturday was given to Captain Rostron by Mrs Astor and two other widows of high-profile and wealthy businessmen, who were also lost when the vessel sank.
The 18-carat Tiffany & Co timepiece bears an inscription reading ‘Presented to Captain Rostron with the heartfelt gratitude and appreciation of three survivors of the Titanic April 15th 1912 Mrs John B Thayer, Mrs John Jacob Astor and Mrs George D Widener’.
Captain Rostron received the gift from Mr Astor’s wife at a lunch at the family’s mansion on Fifth Avenue, New York, according to the auction house.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: ‘It was presented principally in gratitude for Rostron’s bravery in saving those lives, because without Mr Rostron, those 700 people wouldn’t have made it.’
Mr Aldridge said the sale demonstrated the ‘enduring fascination’ with the story of the Titanic.
He added: ‘For historians, they are very interested in the nuts and bolts of Titanic, if you like.
‘She’s 882 feet long. She weighs 46,000 tons, etc, etc, etc.
‘For collectors, it’s a different animal, they are interested in people.
‘Every man, woman and child had a story to tell, and those stories are told over a century later through the memorabilia.’
The violin that was played as the ship sank held the record for the highest amount paid for Titanic artefacts for 11 years, after being sold for £1.1 million in 2013, the auctioneers said.
Mr Aldridge said the fact that this record has been broken twice in the past year illustrated that there is an ‘ever-decreasing supply and an ever-increasing demand’ for memorabilia related to the ship.
Prices for the artefacts are going up ‘exponentially’, he said.
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