A historical pocket watch that was owned by a passenger on the Titanic is set to be available for purchase by the end of this month, with a potential price tag of up to $66,000 as per the auction house handling the sale. The pocket watch originally belonged to Hans Christensen Givard, a 27-year-old from Denmark who was traveling to the United States with two friends when the ill-fated ship sank, claiming their lives. The auctioneers, Henry Aldridge and Son, revealed that Givard’s body was recovered shortly after the Titanic tragedy, and his belongings were eventually returned to his brother in Denmark, who then passed them down to his descendants. One of these items is a “gilded ladies’ pocket watch” made from silver and brass, showing slight signs of saltwater corrosion and missing both hands on its dial.
Andrew Aldridge, a representative from the auction house, poignantly remarked that the watch’s mechanism remains frozen in time from when the Titanic met its tragic end in the cold waters of the North Atlantic back in 1912. The auction house expects the value of the watch to fall between 30,000 and 50,000 British pounds, equivalent to approximately $40,000 to $66,000. Henry Aldridge and Son frequently host auctions featuring Titanic memorabilia, with other items currently up for sale including a handwritten letter from Swedish passenger Erik Gustaf Lind and a third-class ticket from Canadian-born Ernest Portage Tomlin, both of whom perished in the disaster. Additionally, a violin played by the bandleader in the 1997 film “Titanic” is also part of the auction offerings.
Notably, previous pocket watches owned by Titanic passengers have fetched significant sums at Henry Aldridge and Son’s auctions. In a past sale, one such watch was acquired for $2 million, making it the most expensive piece of Titanic memorabilia ever sold at the time. This record-breaking price surpassed an earlier sale of a different gold watch for about $1.46 million, which belonged to the wealthy Titanic passenger John Jacob Astor. Astor’s net worth was estimated at around $87 million during the time of the Titanic tragedy in 1912.
