LONDON — A life jacket worn by a passenger who escaped the sinking RMS Titanic sold at auction on Saturday for 670,000 pounds ($906,000).
The flotation device was worn by Laura Mabel Francatelli, a first-class passenger, and is signed by her and other survivors from the same lifeboat.
It was the standout lot in a sale of Titanic memorabilia by Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, western England, and fetched well above the presale estimate of 250,000 to 350,000 pounds when an unidentified telephone bidder won it.
A seat cushion from one of the Titanic lifeboats also sold at the auction for 390,000 pounds ($527,000) to the owners of two Titanic museums in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Branson, Missouri. The prices include the auction house’s buyer’s premium.
“These record-breaking prices illustrate the continuing interest in the Titanic story, and the respect for the passengers and crew whose stories are immortalized by these items of memorabilia,” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said.
Billed as the world’s most luxurious ocean liner and described as “practically unsinkable,” the Titanic struck an iceberg off Newfoundland during its maiden voyage from England to New York and sank within hours on April 15, 1912. About 1,500 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew died.
The ship’s enduring fascination is tied in part to the wide range of people on board, from impoverished emigrants to wealthy elites.
Francatelli was traveling with fashion designer Lucy Duff Gordon and her husband, Cosmo Duff Gordon. All three survived in lifeboat No. 1, which launched with 12 people despite a capacity of 40; the lifeboat’s failure to return to pick up people from the water later provoked controversy.
The record auction price for Titanic memorabilia remains 1.56 million pounds (nearly $2 million at the time), paid in 2024 for a gold pocket watch given to the captain of the Carpathia, the ship that rescued about 700 Titanic survivors.