The story of John Jacob Astor’s £1.17 million Titanic watch

Buffy Acacia

What would you pay for an antique pocket watch? If it’s from around the turn of the 20th century and it’s made from solid 14k gold, then it’s definitely worth something. If it’s a Waltham, then that’s worth even more: American pocket watches are vastly more collectible than European ones. Its case is modestly decorated, but it bears the initials of its original owner. That could hurt the value. That is, unless that owner just happened to be the richest man who died during the sinking of RMS Titanic. In that case, its worth is now in the millions, as we just saw last week.

John Jacob “Jack” Astor IV was one of the richest people in the world when he boarded the Titanic, and you could spend weeks delving into his Wikipedia page. The Astor family dynasty truly began when the original German-born John Jacob Astor left England to pursue an empire of instruments, fur trading, opium, and real estate in New York during the late 1700s. Now, the Astor family has even gained two titles within the Peerage of the United Kingdom and spans numerous influential families in the US, but that’s beside the point.

Turning our attention back to John Jacob Astor IV, he took over management of the family businesses and built the Astoria Hotel in 1897. It was next to his cousin Waldorf’s hotel, and then they merged into the Waldorf Astoria. His military involvement even saw him briefly become a colonel in a volunteer artillery unit in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. By the time he boarded the Titanic, his net worth was roughly US$87 million, equivalent to US$2.75 billion in today’s money.

To say that Jack Astor was not always popular with the press would be an understatement. As the head of one of New York’s most prominent families and likely the richest man in America, he had a dilettante image that sometimes drew the nickname “Jack Ass-tor.” It isn’t surprising, especially in the early 1900s, that divorcing his wife after his mother’s death was highly controversial. It certainly didn’t help matters that he soon remarried – at the age of 47 – to an 18-year-old socialite by the name of Madeleine Talmage Force. It was hard to say whether their age difference was more or less outrageous than the fact that Astor was divorced, but they chose to escape the gossip by taking a long honeymoon across Egypt and Europe. It was there that Madeleine became pregnant, and the pair rushed back home aboard RMS Titanic.

Well, we all know what happened next. Supposedly, Astor was composed as he helped women and children board the lifeboats, initially thinking that the damage wasn’t too serious. Madeleine survived to give birth to their baby months later, but John Jacob Astor IV’s body was recovered eight days after the incident, identified by clothing labels. Among his discovered possessions was a Waltham watch in a 14k gold case with his initials elaborately adorning the front.

At an auction with Henry Aldridge & Son last week, that watch became the most expensive piece of Titanic memorabilia ever sold at auction with a final sale price of £1.17 million (~US$1.47 million, A$2.23 million). That just narrowly beats the previous record-holder from 2013, which was the famous violin played by bandmaster Wallace Hartley as the ship went down (£1.1 million). Although the violin might fetch a higher price if sold now, this goes to show how much watches are fought over at auctions these days, especially with a famous owner.

For the record, the most expensive pocket watch ever sold at auction was the Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication, going for US$23.98 million in 2014. However, Jack Astor’s Waltham is nowhere near that level of artistry. It’s practically a base model, with just the minutes, hours, and a small seconds subdial. Of course, there’s the Paul Newman Daytona which went for $17.75 million in 2017, but that’s a sports wristwatch from 1968. Perhaps the only comparable sales out there would be Mahatma Gandhi’s Zenith pocket watch that sold for $2.08 million in 2009, or James Dean’s gold-cased Elgin that sold for $42,000 in 2013.

Clearly, the market is fairly unstable for celebrity-owned pocket watches without complications, but considering a 14k Waltham would only be worth around $2,000-$4,000 on its own, its record-breaking auction result is definitely more associated with Titanic than horology.