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Watch of one of Titanic's richest passengers sells for £1m

2025-11-13 19:42:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

A gold pocket watch found on the body of one of the Titanic's wealthiest passengers is set to sell for over £1m. Isidor Straus and his wife Ida were immortalised in James Cameron's 1997 hit film as the elderly couple who held each other in bed as the Titanic sank.

On the night of the 1912 tragedy, Straus' wife refused a place on a lifeboat because she did not want to leave her husband and said she would rather die next to him. Mr. Straus's body was pulled from the Atlantic a few days after the tragedy, and among his belongings was his 18-karat gold "Jules Jurgensen" pocket watch that had stopped at 2:20 a.m., the moment the Titanic sank.

The magnificent clock, which was engraved with the initials IS, was returned to his son, Jesse, along with other personal effects. His clock passed down through generations of the family before Kenneth Hollister Straus, Mr. Straus' great-grandson, repaired and restored the mechanism.

Now, the watch is being sold by the family for the first time, and is expected to become one of the most expensive Titanic artifacts ever sold. Mrs Straus' body was never found after the tragedy of April 15, 1912, in which 1,520 people lost their lives.

The watch is believed to have been a gift from Mrs. Straus to her husband in 1888. The date engraved on it, February, was Mr. Straus's 43rd birthday, and 1888 was the year he and his brother Nathan became full partners in Macy's, currently the largest department store chain in the United States. /CNA