It’s been more than 100 years since first-class passenger Isidor Straus refused to leave the Titanic before the other men. His wife did not want to separate from him. Both drowned in the early hours of April 15, 1912 as the ship sank. Several personal items were recovered from Straus’ body and returned to the family, including a pocket watch with the time stopped at 2:20. This particular gold object sold for a record 1.78 million pounds (two million euros) at an auction in the south of England.
The amount paid for that 18-carat gold watch was the highest amount ever paid for Titanic memorabilia, according to auction house Henry Aldridge & Son Auctioneers, in the town of Devizes, which auctioned the piece on Saturday. The previous record was set last year, when another gold pocket watch, given to the captain of the ship that saved more than 700 passengers from the liner, sold for 1.7 million euros. Andrew Aldridge, owner of the auction house, told the media that the record price “illustrates the continuing interest in the story of the Titanic”, which sailed between the port of Southampton in southern England and New York, but sank in the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean after hitting an iceberg.
On the night of the shipwreck, the couple went to the deck of the Titanic, where Mrs. Straus was offered a place in a lifeboat, but Isidor Straus replied that he would not go before the other men, while his wife refused to part with him. The last time they were seen alive was when they were sitting on deck chairs, facing doom. They were among the few first class passengers who died in the tragedy, which claimed the lives of 1,500 people. The wedding story appeared in a sequence of the film Titanic (1997), directed by James Cameron, in which the two are lying in bed while musicians play on deck and water enters the ship.
Isidor Straus was a businessman, politician and co-owner of the Macy’s department store in New York, born in Bavaria (Germany) and of American nationality. A letter written by Mrs Straus on Titanic letterhead and sent aboard the Belfast-built luxury ship has been auctioned for the equivalent of $130,000. In the letter, written on Titanic letterhead and addressed to a family friend, he described the “magnificence and luxury” of what was then the largest ocean liner in the world. Mrs. Straus’ body was never found.
