The pocket watch’s hands are missing now, but a watermark takes their place — long-dried tracks of the icy Atlantic water that swallowed the Titanic more than a century ago.
The stain on the watch face indicates that the hands were likely pointed to about 2:25 a.m. when the watch stopped — about five minutes after the ship sank, and probably around the moment the watch, and its owner, hit the water.
It’s among a group of Titanic artifacts going up for auction Saturday, authenticated and sold by U.K. auctioneer Henry Aldridge & Son, Ltd. Also for sale are a never-before-seen menu from the fourth-to-last dinner on board and a blanket that was probably used during the rescue.
The pocket watch belonged to second-class passenger Sinai Kantor, a 34-year-old who died when the ship sank, and was recovered with his body. The watch displays Hebrew numerals; embossed on the back is a depiction of Moses holding the Ten Commandments.
“It’s literally frozen in time at that point, 111 years ago, when Titanic sank beneath the waves and Mr. Kantor went into the water,” Andrew A. Aldridge, managing director for the auction house, told The Washington Post.
As pieces of broader history, individuals’ stories and enduring mystery, items from the Titanic routinely draw both public fascination and high prices at auction. While some artifacts have been recovered from the shipwreck on the ocean floor, many survived the wreck and have been passed down on land ever since.
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“With Titanic memorabilia, it’s all down to provenance, backstory, history. I want to know where it’s been,” Aldridge said. “It’s all about stories.”
The Titanic, billed as an unsinkable ship, sank in the Atlantic on April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg in the night. The disaster has captured human imagination for more than a century. This summer, five people on a tourist mission to see the ship’s wreckage were killed when their vessel imploded, a tragedy that also commanded worldwide attention.
Aldridge & Son specializes in memorabilia from the famed ocean liner and holds Titanic sales twice a year. Sometimes, a piece goes up for auction that especially resonates with the public, Aldridge said — like the menu and the watch, which had him speaking to reporters across the hemisphere Thursday. The watch was previously sold at auction in 2018.
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The auction will take place Saturday in person and online. The blanket is estimated by the auctioneer to go for as much as $122,000; the watch $98,000 and the menu $85,000.
Other objects include a poster advertising Titanic’s return voyage from New York, which never happened — a rare item because the White Star Line destroyed as many as they could after the ship sank, Aldridge said — and papers including a plan showing the ship’s first-class accommodations, a stamped slip from a postal clerk and a promotional brochure.
“It’s wonderful that the story is still being told, that the ship is still sharing parts of her life and her history with the world,” said Michael Findlay, former president of the Titanic International Society. “We learn so much from one piece.”
One of Aldridge’s favorites is the blanket, which has tartan-patterned fabric with the logo of White Star Line, the shipping company that owned the Titanic, embroidered in a corner. It was acquired by Frederick Toppin, a White Star manager, when he met survivors coming off the rescue ship Carpathia in New York, according to the auctioneer.
“You have something that’s quite fragile, in effect, yet it survived this terrible disaster,” Aldridge said. “The fact that the blanket was grabbed during the sinking to keep someone warm. … The blanket may have saved a life.”
The pocket watch that belonged to Kantor was one of several things he was carrying when he died, along with his passport, a notebook, wallets, a telescope and a corkscrew. His wife, Miriam, survived in a lifeboat.
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The couple had recently married and were coming from Russia to start a new life in New York, Findlay said. Kantor planned to sell furs as a merchant while the two studied dentistry and medicine, according to the auctioneer.
“On the night of the disaster, like so many couples, they were forced to separate because of the ‘women and children only’ rule,” Findlay said. “Mr. Kantor had to remain behind.”
According to the auctioneer, the watch and his other possessions were returned to Kantor’s widow in May 1912 by the White Star Line.
A number of timepieces survived the 1912 shipwreck, and most of them are stopped between 2:20 and 2:30, Findlay said.
“It all depends when the individual went into the water,” he said. “It’s haunting.”
The dinner menu, water-stained and partially faded, has a more opaque story: Its route from boat to shore is unknown, but it landed in Nova Scotia. It eventually fell into the hands of a collector, Len Stephenson, and remained unknown to the world until after his death.
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The menu, for first-class dinner the night of April 11, four days before the ship sank, was discovered by Stephenson’s family inside a photo album from the 1960s. They sent it for authentication to Aldridge, who was delighted when he opened the package to discover the menu was original.
“To discover a menu that is unique, that was completely unknown before, is an incredible thrill,” Aldridge said.
Menus are of particular fascination to some because they offer “a tangible link” to the event, and a blueprint for re-creating it. Clients who have purchased other Titanic menus have done just that, Aldridge said, throwing parties and re-creating an entire dinner exactly as written.
Though other menus were saved from the ship, this is the only one known to exist from April 11, according to the auctioneer. The ship had left Ireland and headed into the Atlantic that day, meaning the extravagant dinner took place on the ship’s first night at sea after its final stop before New York.
The first-class dinner, served to the ship’s wealthiest passengers, included salmon with Hollandaise sauce and whitebait fish; “tournados of beef à la Victoria” and “squab à la Godard”; peas, parsnips, rice, potatoes. Entrees were spring lamb in mint sauce, roast chicken in bread sauce and beef sirloin with horseradish cream. Mallard duck in port wine sauce and salad were offered before the desserts: “Victoria pudding, apricots bordaloue, petits mocka,” followed by the ice cream.
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“It gives us a snapshot into the level of opulence,” Aldridge said. “It was a very, very luxurious affair.”
How the dinner menu made it to land will remain a mystery: Did someone tuck the menu in their pocket? Was it with someone who died, kept afloat by a life vest? How long did it stay in the water?
“Sadly, that’s lost in the sands of time,” Aldridge said. “All we can say, categorically, beyond all reasonable doubt: This menu is a remarkable survivor.”
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