The gold watch of a couple who died together on the Titanic sells for $2.3 million

A pocket watch that once belonged to one of the Titanic’s most famous passengers has sold at auction for $2.3 million, a record price for memorabilia related to the historic shipwreck, according to the auction house.

The 18-karat gold watch was given to its original owner, Isidor Straus, by his wife, Ida Straus, for his 43rd birthday, said Henry Aldridge and Son, the auction house that sold it on Saturday. His body was recovered after the sinking of the Titanic in the North Atlantic in April 1912.

Isidor Straus was an American businessman and politician who owned Macy’s department store in New York City. He and his wife were first-class passengers on the Titanic during its maiden voyage from England to New York, and the couple is remembered for their final act of selflessness on board.

Witnesses who survived the Titanic’s sinking later said the Strauses were offered two seats in a lifeboat once the ship hit an iceberg, according to the U.K. government’s National Archives. But Isidor Straus refused his seat, insisting instead that it should have been offered to younger men, and Ida Straus followed him, reportedly saying: “Where you go, I go.”

According to those files, Isidor and Ida Straus were last seen arm in arm on the deck of the Titanic, before a wave broke over their heads and swept them into the sea. The Straus were Wendy Rush’s Ancestorswife of OceanGate founder Stockton Rush, who died in the infamous Titan submersible explosion in 2023 en route to the Titanic wreck site.

Straus’ pocket watch surpassed the previous sales record for a piece of memorabilia from Titanic history by about $300,000, according to Henry Aldridge and Son. The previous record had been achieved by another gold pocket watch, which sold at auction last year for around 1.97 million dollars. The survivors of the Titanic had given it to the captain of the RMS Carpathia, who steered his ship toward the wreckage of the Titanic the night it sank and ultimately rescued hundreds of passengers still afloat in lifeboats, according to the auction house.

“Pocket watches are incredibly personal items,” Andrew Aldridge, CEO of the auction house, said in a statement. “Each man, woman and child, passenger or crew, had a story to tell and it is told 113 years later through the objects they owned. Items like this keep history alive and bring us closer to the memory of one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.”