Even asthe Titanicslipped beneath the icy North Atlantic, one story of devotion survived the disaster — and now it has made history at auction.
A gold pocket watch that once ticked on the wrist of first-class passenger Isidor Straus, who drowned alongside his wife Ida, has sold for a record-breaking £1.78 million ($2.32 million). It is the highest price ever paid for Titanic memorabilia, auctioneers said.
The 18-carat Jules Jurgensen watch, engraved and given to Straus for his 43rd birthday in 1888 — the same year he became a partner inNew York's iconic department store Macy's— was recovered from his bodyafter the ship sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912.
The couple, played by Lew Palter and Elsa Raven in James Cameron's 1997 film "Titanic," refused to separate in their final moments and were last seen by witnesses arm in arm on the deck of the sinking ship.
Straus had been offered a seat on a lifeboat due to his age, but he insisted that other men go first. Ida Straus refused to leave his side. They were among the very few first-class passengers to perish in the disaster that claimed 1,500 lives.
The watch remained in the Straus family for more than a century before being sold at Henry Aldridge & Son Auctioneers in the British town of Devizes.
Other Titanic treasures auctioned off on Saturday include a letter written by Ida Straus aboard the Titanic, a passenger list, and a gold medal awarded to the RMS Carpathia's crew by survivors, with the auction bringing in a total of £3 million ($3.92 million) on Saturday.
"Every man, woman and child on that ship had a story to tell," auctioneer Andrew Aldridge told NBC News' British partner Sky News.
The Strauses decided that "we've been together this long, and we're not leaving each other now," he explained. "They were last seen as the ship was sinking, holding hands and sitting in two deckchairs. It's an incredible love story. We're 113 years later talking about this ship, and the reasons we're talking about this ship are the people."
Isidor Straus, born in 1845 into a Jewish family in Otterberg, Bavaria, emigrated to the United States in 1854. The couple were travelling home from a trip when they boarded the doomed Titanic in Southampton, heading for New York.
