Titanic: we know more about the mysterious watch bought for almost two million dollars

The Titanic continues to be at the top of the news, since its tragic sinking in 1912 in the Atlantic Ocean, which dragged the most luxurious liner in the world and its hundreds of passengers to the bottom of the waters – 1,500 died during this terrible night. The wreck found by a Franco-American expedition in 1985 has since revealed a number of objects that remained buried for decades, becoming the objects of successful exhibitions around the world. But the star of all relics is now… a Tiffany watch.

$1.97 million for Captain Rostron’s gold watch

The American jewelry and watchmaking house has just announced the purchase of a historic timepiece dating from 1912, the year of the shipwreck, during an auction organized by Henry Aldridge and Son. Ltd. The sum paid lives up to the myth: the Tiffany watch was bought back for $1.97 million, making this 18-carat gold pocket watch the most expensive Titanic-related collector’s item in history. However, this watch was not on board the transatlantic liner immortalized in James Cameron’s film: it is, in reality, a gift made by three survivors to the captain of the boat who came to save them from the icy waters of the ocean.

The tribute of three survivors

These three women were Madeleine Talmage Astor, Marian Longstreth Thayer and Eleanor Elkins Widener. Like several hundred other passengers, they were able to escape death thanks to the arrival of another ship, the liner RMS Carpathia, led by Captain Arthur H. Rostron. Purchased from Tiffany by Mrs. Widener, the watch is engraved with the following inscription: “Presented to Captain Rostron with the sincere gratitude and appreciation of three survivors of the Titanic, April 15, 1912, Mrs. John B. Thayer, Mrs. John Jacob Astor and Mrs. George D. Widener.” It was given to the commander during a lunch organized at the New York residence of Madame Astor, a figure from one of the richest families in the United States. Madeleine had just married the billionaire John Jacob Astor IV, thirty years her senior: to escape the gossip, the couple had decided to spend their honeymoon in Egypt and Italy, before returning to America with the inaugural crossing of the liner the most famous in the world: the Titanic. Madeleine Astor managed to escape to safety on a lifeboat, but John Jacob Astor died, after giving his new wife… a pair of gloves. Marian Thayer will also lose her husband during the sinking of the Titanic, while Eleanor Widener will never see her son or her husband again.

Acknowledgments, engraved in gold, from Madeleine Talmage Astor, Marian Longstreth Thayer and Eleanor Elkins Widener.

T|Tiffany & Co. Studio

Aboard the Carpathia, the three survivors were welcomed into Captain Rostron’s cabin. This perhaps explains their desire to personally thank the one who had saved their lives. The watch will join Tiffany’s rich archives, which was recently the subject of an exhibition in London. According to Christopher Young, Tiffany’s Vice President of Creative Visual Merchandising, Events and Archives, “The Captain Rostron Pocket Watch is a magnificent expression of thanks and gratitude, and we are honored to welcome this extraordinary treasure into the fold.” by Tiffany & Co.”