Freeman’s is putting John Jacob Astor IV’s titanic gold pocket watch up for auction this month, with the watch expected to bring $300,000 to $500,000. The sale also includes a gold pencil case from the same recovery, giving collectors two items tied to Astor’s final hours aboard the ship.
Astor’s Tiffany watch
Astor bought the Patek Philippe watch in 1904 from Tiffany & Co. in New York City. It is made of 18-karat yellow gold, and the back is engraved with his monogram. Freeman’s senior vice president and head of watches, Reginald Brack, said, “These are among the most powerful personal artifacts connected to the Titanic.”
Brack also said, “The watch and pencil were recovered from John Jacob Astor himself, carefully preserved by his family for more than a century, and now emerge with documented provenance across four generations.” That family chain is part of what sets this sale apart from many Titanic items that change hands without the same paper trail.
What Astor carried
Astor was 47 when he boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg, France, with a net worth of more than $80 million. Records from 1912 show he was carrying gold cuff links, cash, a diamond ring, a gold pencil case and the engraved watch when he died. Those personal effects were found with his body days after the ship sank.
The pencil case is made of 14-karat yellow gold, nearly four inches long, and decorated with two diamonds and a sapphire. It carries the words “Oct. 1906 J from M.” and is expected to fetch $10,000 to $20,000. Freeman’s said the pocket watch and pencil case were returned to Astor’s son, Vincent, and stayed in the family ever since.
Madeline Astor and the lifeboat
Astor was a first-class passenger and the wealthiest person on the Titanic. Four days into the maiden voyage, the ship struck an iceberg, and Captain Edward J. Smith advised Astor to bring his wife to the deck. Madeleine Astor boarded a lifeboat less than an hour later.
Astor asked to join her, citing her “delicate condition,” but was told no men were to board lifeboats until all women and children were safe. Witnesses last saw him waving to Madeleine’s lifeboat. Freeman’s said his reported words were, “I’ll see you in New York,” before he stepped back from the lifeboat area.
Titanic artifact market
The sale comes after another pocket watch allegedly found with Astor sold for $1.5 million at auction in 2024, a price that became the most expensive Titanic artifact ever sold at the time. In 2025, the gold pocket watch of Titanic passenger Isidor Straus sold for $2.3 million. Records from 1912 suggest Astor had only one watch on him when he died, a detail that complicates the later claim around the 2024 sale.
Brack said, “This single object unites four extraordinary names—Astor, Patek Philippe, Tiffany and Titanic.” For collectors, the immediate question is how close the bidding comes to the $500,000 ceiling, because that will show how much weight buyers place on the watch’s documented family history as much as on its connection to the sinking.
