Gold Titanic pocket watch sells for 4.1m dirham at auction

A gold pocket watch, which was recovered from the body of the richest man on the Titanic, has sold for over 4.1m dirham at auction, along with other items recovered from the sunken ship.

The gold pocket watch, owned by businessman John Jacob Astor, went under the hammer in a lot with other sought-after items from the Titanic. The unique item sold for over six times the asking price when it went to auction in Wilshire, UK.

The total amount paid by the buyer will be 5,453,907 dirham (£1.175m) after taxes and fees, making it a world record for a Titanic artefact. 

Earlier in the auction a violin case belonging to the man who led the orchestra on the deck as the ship went down in 1912 also fetched 1,346,070 dirham (£290,000) when it went under the hammer.

The two pieces of maritime memorabilia were part of a sale in Devizes of more than 280 lots relating to ocean liners.

The previous record sale for a Titanic item was for a violin from the wreckage which also sold for 4.1m dirham (£900,000) but at the time the total cost came to 5,105,786 dirham (£1.1m) with taxes and fees.

Titanic was sailing from Southampton to New York when it hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic on the night of 14 April 1912. It sank with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.