The gold watch of John Jacob Astor IV – a member of the Astor family, one of America’s wealthiest dynasties and the richest passenger on the Titanic – was sold for nearly $1.5 million on April 27, according to CNN.
John Jacob Astor IV’s gold watch. (Photo: CorinMesser/BNPS/MEGA).
At the auction on April 27, Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire, England, sold the watch to a private collector in the U.S. for a record-breaking price of £1.175 million (nearly $1.5 million).
This sale price was ten times higher than the estimated value, setting a new world record for Titanic-related memorabilia.
The watch belonged to businessman John Jacob Astor IV. He was among the 1,500 people who lost their lives when the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912. His body, along with the gold watch, was discovered seven days after the historical tragedy.
Vincent Astor, the son of John Jacob Astor IV, had the watch repaired and kept it with him for decades before gifting it to the son of William Dobbyn IV, his father’s secretary, prior to its auction.
According to Andrew Aldridge, the managing director at Henry Aldridge & Son, Astor was one of the wealthiest individuals in the world at the time of the Titanic disaster, with a net worth of $87 million, equivalent to several billion dollars today.
