Titanic Tycoon Astor’s Patek Philippe Watch Set for Auction
(Bloomberg) — A Patek Philippe pocket watch carried by one of the richest men in America during the sinking of the Titanic will be auctioned for the first time, more than a century after the disaster.
The 18-carat gold timepiece sold by Tiffany & Co. and engraved with financier John Jacob Astor IV’s monogram will be offered by Freeman’s, America’s oldest auction house, at its Chicago watches sale on April 22.
“This single object unites four extraordinary names – Astor, Patek Philippe, Tiffany and Titanic,” Reginald Brack, senior vice president and head of department for watches at Freeman’s, said in an interview. “That also gives it a very particular place within both American luxury history and Titanic history so it really is the perfect combination for a luxury historical horological collector to get excited about.”
The pocket watch is estimated to fetch between $300,000 and $500,000. It will be sold alongside a gold and sapphire pencil case retrieved at the same time, which may go for between $10,000 and $20,000.
The pieces were recovered from Astor’s body by the crew of cable ship Mackay-Bennett days after the famed vessel sank in April 1912, and were returned to his son Vincent, who wore the watch until his death in 1959. The objects were passed down through four generations of the family, and are now being put on the block by the estate of Charlene Marshall.
“The right steps were taken immediately to salvage this treasure for future generations,” said Brack.
Astor, the wealthiest passenger aboard the Titanic, helped his pregnant 18-year-old wife Madeleine into a lifeboat on the night of April 14, 1912, before stepping back as the evacuation continued.
The couple was on the way back from their honeymoon. Astor perished when the ship sank early the following morning.
The businessman, inventor and writer was a member of the prominent Astor family, whose fortune was built by his great-grandfather through the fur and opium trade as well as real estate. Astor then grew it through hotels, including New York’s famed Waldorf-Astoria.
His watch, purchased from Tiffany & Co. in 1904, is accompanied by an extract from the Patek Philippe archives confirming its manufacture and sale date, a rare authentication for such a historical piece.
Such cultural, historical artifacts usually do extremely well because of their rarity, according to Brack.
–With assistance from Chris Miller.
(Updates with Brack comment in final paragraph. A previous version of the story was corrected to fix a word in the quote.)
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