How Titanic lovers pocketed Ksh302M for a gold watch
By Sky News, November 23, 2025A gold pocket watch that belonged to an elderly couple who drowned as the Titanic sank has sold for a record-breaking Ksh302 million at auction.
The 18-carat Jules Jurgensen engraved watch was owned by first-class passenger Isidor Straus, who died when the ship sank in April 1912.
He and his wife, Ida, were portrayed in the film Titanic as a couple who held each other as the ship went down.
When he was offered a seat on a lifeboat due to his age, he replied that he would not go before other men.
His wife refused to leave him, and the couple were last seen alive sitting on deckchairs, facing fate by each other’s side.
They were among the very few first-class passengers to perish in the disaster.
The watch was recovered from Straus’s body along with other personal items and returned to his family.
It had been a present for his 43rd birthday in 1888 – the same year he became a partner in the New York department store, Macy’s.
The watch, which had remained in the couple’s family, was sold at Henry Aldridge & Son Auctioneers in Devizes, Wiltshire.
The amount for the item is the highest amount ever paid for Titanic memorabilia, according to the company.
A letter written by Straus on Titanic stationery and posted while onboard the ship fetched Ksh16.9 million. The previous record was set last year when another gold pocket watch presented to the captain of a boat that rescued over 700 passengers from the liner sold for Ksh264 million.
During the night of the sinking, the wealthy couple made their way to the Titanic’s boat deck.
When Straus was offered a seat on a lifeboat due to his age, he replied that he would not go before other men.
Straus refused to leave her husband, and they were last seen alive sitting on deckchairs, facing fate by each other’s side.
They were among the very few first-class passengers to perish in the disaster.
Born into a Jewish family in Otterberg, Bavaria, in 1845, emigrated to the US with his family in 1854.
In January 1912, he and his wife travelled on RMS Caronia to Jerusalem before returning to the US via Southampton on the Titanic.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said, “The world record price illustrates the enduring interest in the Titanic story.