The watch was sold for the equivalent of 1.4 million euros. PA Images/Getty Images
A gold pocket watch belonging to the Titanic’s richest passenger was auctioned for around 1.4 million euros.
This is the highest price ever paid for a piece of Titanic memorabilia.´
The clock belonged to John Jacob Astor IV, a businessman who died when the ship sank in 1912.
A gold pocket watch that belonged to the richest man on the Titanic was auctioned for a record-breaking 1.175 million pounds, the equivalent of around 1.4 million euros.
The watch was sold to a private collector in the United States on Saturday by Henry Aldridge & Son, an auction house in Devizes, Wiltshire, southwest England.
“Many thanks to all of our customers who were in the room, online and on the phone today,” one post said Instagram by Henry Aldridge & Son, adding that sales of the clock had achieved a “new house record”.
The richest man on the Titanic
The clock had belonged to John Jacob Astor IV, a businessman and real estate developer who went down with the ship when it sank in the Atlantic in 1912.
“Astor is known as the richest passenger aboard the RMS Titanic and was considered one of the richest people in the world at the time, with a net worth of approximately $87 million,” it reads Website von Henry Aldridge & Son.
Astor IV, who was 47 at the time of the Titanic’s sinking, helped his wife Madeleine into a lifeboat and then smoked one last cigarette as the ship sank.
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The 14-karat gold Waltham pocket watch engraved with JJA was found on his body when it was recovered a week later.
A violin from the Titanic was auctioned for 1.3 million euros
The highest amount ever paid for a Titanic artifact was 1.1 million pounds, the equivalent of 1.285 million euros, for a violin that band member Wallace Hartley is said to have played to calm passengers as the ship sank .
The violin case sold for £360,000 (€420,000) at the same auction on Saturday.
The RMS Titanic.
Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The RMS Titanic sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912 after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. It is estimated that around 1,500 people died lives came.
The ship was built by Harland & Wolff in Belfast, Northern Ireland and was launched on May 31, 1911.
Last year, a submersible belonging to the expedition company OceanGate imploded while diving to view the wreck of the Titanic. All five passengers on board were killed.
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