Gold pocket watch from Titanic fails to sell

A pocket watch from the Titanic has failed to find a buyer after failing to meet its asking price at John Nicholson’s sale yesterday.

The Haslemere auction house had expected the pocket watch to fetch £30,000–£50,000 but it came up short. 

“Anything that is related to the Titanic in one way or another is valuable,” said auctioneer John Nicholson himself. “As an auctioneer you dream of getting something special like this, and it has been a pleasure to be associated with it.

“What is special is the history and the mystique of it, and the parts that we don’t actually know.”

The item was supposedly handed to a crew member by passenger Albert Caldwell on the doomed voyage, but it’s not clear whether this was an act of charity or a bribe to get access to one of the lifeboats.

In contrast, a similar pocket watch from the same ship sold for £46,000 just last month at auction.