Jen Mills
Published November 23, 2025 1:45pm
Updated November 23, 2025 2:24pm
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Isidor Straus and his wife Ida, who both perished on the Titanic (Picture: Straus Historical Society)
A gold pocket watch which stopped the moment the Titanic sank into the Atlantic has sold for a record breaking £1.78 million.
The timepiece stopped as the huge ship sank beneath the waves at 2.20am on April 14, 1912, flooding all decks meaning the timepiece could no longer be kept dry.
Less than three hours earlier, the ‘unsinkable’ ship had scraped a huge iceberg on its way to New York from Southampton, never making its destination.
The total number of victims is unknown, but amounts to more than 1,500, among them wealthy elderly couple Isidor Straus and his wife Ida, who were travelling in first class.
The gold pocket watch which stopped the moment the Titanic sank at 2.20am (Picture: Henry Aldridge and Son Ltd/PA Wire)
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The body of Isidor, a co-owner of Macy’s department store, was recovered in the days following the disaster, as well as his watch which was returned to his family.
His wife’s body was never found, but she is believed to have turned down a space in a lifeboat in order to remain with her husband.
Her great-great-granddaughter Jessica Straus told the Titanic museum in Belfast that Ida was offered a space on Lifeboat 8, but refused to take it alone: ‘They were in their 60s, had been together for many, many years and had several children together.
‘Ida would not go without her husband. Isidor was offered a place on another lifeboat but he chose not to go without her. He begged her to get on and she turned and said to him, ‘Isidor we have been together for all these years. Where you go, I go.'”‘
The couple were portrayed holding each other as the ship sank in the film Titanic (Picture: 20th Century Fox)
The couple are among the most famous of the ship’s passengers, portrayed in James Cameron’s 1997 film holding one another in bed as the ship went down.
In reality, they were last seen sitting together on deck chairs, arm in arm.
The 18 carat Jules Jurgensen pocket watch is now the most valuable piece of Titanic memorabilia ever sold, having been sold by Henry Aldridge and Son Auctioneers in Devizes, Wiltshire, on Saturday.
A 43rd birthday gift from Ida, engraved with his initials, it had been passed down through generations of the Straus family, including to Isidor’s great-grandson Kenneth Hollister Straus, who had the watch repaired and its movement restored.
A letter, written by Ida Straus on Titanic stationery and posted while onboard the ship (Picture: Henry Aldridge and Son Ltd/PA Wire)
At the same action, a letter from Ida on Titanic stationery and posted from the ship sold for £100,000.
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In it, she wrote: ‘What a ship! So huge and so magnificently appointed. Our rooms are furnished in the best of taste and most luxurious.’
But she also referenced an incident where Titanic almost collided with moored liner the SS New York as it left Southampton, saying: ‘Size seems to bring its troubles.
‘Mr Straus, who was on deck when the start was made, said at one time it looked painfully near to the repetitions of the Olympic’s experience on her first trip out of harbour, but the danger was soon averted, and we are now well on our course across the channel to Cherbourg.’
Until this weekend’s auction, the most valuable piece of memorabilia from the disaster was another gold pocket watch, which sold for £1.56 million. It had been presented to the captain of the Carpathia, a steamship which was responded to the stricken Titanic, rescuing more than 700 people.
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