Life jacket worn by passenger who survived Titanic disaster auctioned for over $900,000

A life jacket worn by a passenger on RMS Titanic as she escaped the sinking steamship on a lifeboat sold at an auction on Saturday for 670,000 pounds ($906,000).

The flotation device was worn by Laura Mabel Francatelli, a first-class passenger on the doomed oceanliner, and is signed by her and other survivors from the same lifeboat.

It was the star among items in a sale of Titanic memorabilia by Henry Aldridge & Son auctioneers in Devizes, western England, and sold to an unidentified telephone bidder for well over the presale estimate of between 250,000 and 350,000 pounds.

A seat cushion from one of the Titanic lifeboats sold at the same auction for 390,000 pounds ($527,000) to the owners of two Titanic museums in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Branson, Missouri.

The prices include an auction-house fee known as the 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 immortalised by these items of memorabilia,” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said.

Billed as the world’s most luxurious oceanliner and described as "practically unsinkable,” the Titanic hit an iceberg off Newfoundland during its maiden voyage from England to New York. It sank within hours on April 15, 1912. Some 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers and crew died.

The Titanic is still a subject of worldwide fascination, in part because of the range of passengers aboard the ship, from paupers to plutocrats.

Francatelli was travelling with her employer, fashion designer Lucy Duff Gordon, and Lucy’s husband Cosmo Duff Gordon. All three survived in the ship’s lifeboat No.1, which was launched carrying 12 people despite having capacity for 40. Its failure to pick up survivors from the frigid water became a source of controversy.

The record auction price for a piece of Titanic memorabilia is 1.56 million pounds (almost $2 million at the time) paid in 2024 for a gold pocket watch given to the captain of RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued 700 Titanic survivors.

Associated Press