Gold pocket watch found on body of Titanic's richest passenger is up for auction

Gold pocket watch found on body of Titanic’s richest passenger is up for auction

A pocket watch that belonged to the wealthiest passenger aboard the Titanic is up for auction and could sell for as much as 150,000 pounds, or nearly $190,000. 

The auction for John Jacob Astor IV’s 14-carat gold Waltham pocket watch begins Saturday, with a starting bid of 60,000 pounds, according to auction house Henry Aldridge & Son. The watch, engraved with the initials JJA, was found along with Astor’s body when his remains were recovered several days after the Titanic sank. He was also found with a diamond ring, gold and diamond cufflinks, 225 pounds in English notes, and $2,440.

“Astor is well known as the richest passenger aboard the R.M.S. Titanic and was thought to be among the richest people in the world at that time, with a net worth of roughly $87 million (equivalent to several billion dollars today,)” the auction house wrote.

a photo taken on April 16, 1912, that apparently shows the iceberg that doomed the ship.

In November, a rare menu from the Titanic‘s first-class restaurant sold at auction along with a pocket watch from another man who died in the 1912 disaster. The menu sold for about about $101,600. The pocket watch, recovered from Russian immigrant Sinai Kantor, sold for about $118,700. 

Before his death, Astor was a business magnate, real estate developer, investor, writer, and a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish–American War, according to the auction house. He founded the St. Regis hotel in New York City, which still stands today. Astor is also credited with inventing an early form of air conditioning by blowing cold air over the hotel’s wall vents

He was the great grandson of John Jacob Astor, a fur trader who died in 1848 as one of the wealthiest men in the U.S., according to the Library of Congress. In their 2023 book “Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune,” Anderson Cooper and co-author historian Katherine Howe described how the family made its fortune. 

Aliza Chasan

Source: cbsnews.com

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