{"id":3674,"date":"2025-11-14T09:01:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T09:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/14\/titanic-passengers-gold-pocket-watch-set-to-fetch-1m\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T09:01:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T09:01:18","slug":"titanic-passengers-gold-pocket-watch-set-to-fetch-1m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/14\/titanic-passengers-gold-pocket-watch-set-to-fetch-1m\/","title":{"rendered":"Titanic passenger\u2019s gold pocket watch set to fetch \u00a31m"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>2025-11-14 09:01:16<\/b><br \/>\n<BR>A gold pocket watch recovered from the body of one of the Titanic\u2019s wealthiest passengers is expected to sell for \u00a31 million at auction later this month.<BR><br \/>\nThe 18-carat Jules Jurgensen timepiece belonged to Isidor Straus, the Bavaria-born American businessman, politician and co-owner of Macy\u2019s department store. <BR><br \/>\nStraus and his wife, Ida, were among more than 1,500 people who perished when the \u201cunsinkable\u201d liner struck an iceberg and went down in the early hours of 14 April 1912.<BR><br \/>\nStraus\u2019s body was recovered days later, and among his possessions was the gold watch &#8211; frozen at 02:20, the exact moment the Titanic slipped beneath the Atlantic. <BR><br \/>\nBelieved to have been a gift from Ida in 1888, it is engraved with Straus\u2019s initials and has been carefully restored by his great-grandson, Kenneth Hollister Straus.<BR><br \/>\nAuctioneer Andrew Aldridge, of Henry Aldridge and Son in Wiltshire, said the watch is \u201ca phenomenal piece of memorabilia\u201d.<BR><br \/>\nHe told BBC Radio Wiltshire: &#8220;With the watch, we are retelling Isidor\u2019s story.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\nOn the night of the sinking, Ida famously refused a place in a lifeboat, telling her husband she would not leave him. Her body was never found. <BR><br \/>\nTheir final moments together were later immortalised in James Cameron\u2019s Titanic, where an elderly couple embrace as the ship floods.<BR><br \/>\nThe watch will be sold alongside a rare letter Ida wrote aboard the liner on November 22.<BR><br \/>\nDescribing the Titanic\u2019s opulence, Ida said: &#8220;What a ship! So huge and so magnificently appointed\u2026 the most luxurious.\u201d<BR><br \/>\nFranked on board and offloaded with mail at Queenstown, the letter is expected to fetch \u00a3150,000.<BR><br \/>\nThe auction house says global interest has already been \u201csignificant\u201d. <BR><br \/>\nIf the estimate holds, Straus\u2019s watch will join the ranks of the most valuable Titanic artefacts ever sold &#8211; a list topped by the \u00a31.56 million gold watch presented to the captain of the Carpathia, the ship that rescued survivors.<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Visit Bang Bizarre (main website) <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/xtbac.js\" data-video=\"\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2025-11-14 09:01:16 A gold pocket watch recovered from the body of one of the Titanic\u2019s wealthiest passengers is expected to sell for \u00a31 million at auction later this month. The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bizarre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3675,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions\/3675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}