R.M.S. TITANIC: An extremely rare pocket watch owned by and ...

Hammer

£75,000

R.M.S. TITANIC: An extremely rare pocket watch owned by and recovered from Second-Class Titanic passenger Sinai Kantor who was one of the victims of the Titanic disaster. Sinai, a Russian immigrant was on his way to America accompanied by his wife Miriam. Both from Vitebsk, Russia, he was 34 years old, and she just 24, when he paid £26 for ticket No. 244367. The two boarded the ship together in Southampton. The couple were university graduates; Sinai Kantor was a furrier and intended to sell trunks of furs to fund the couple's goal to each study dentistry and medicine when they arrived and settled in the Bronx, New York. That was until their lives were shattered in the early hours of April 15, 1912, after the Titanic collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Miriam alone was saved in lifeboat 12.
Sinai Kantor's body was recovered by the C.S. MacKay-Bennett and was pulled from the icy water during the gruelling, seven-day operation. He was labelled "Body No. 283" and embalmed on the ship. He is buried at Mount Zion Cemetery, Queens, New York. Sinai's effects were returned to his widow, these included his Russian passport, a notebook, money, wallets, a "silver watch," a telescope and corkscrew. The property was sent to the White Star Line offices in New York and then delivered to her on May 24, 1912.
The Swiss-made open-face silver-on-brass watch, with its original movement and a diameter of three inches, includes numerals that are Hebrew figures. The back cover has an embossed design that shows Moses holding the Ten Commandments. The watch's movement is heavily corroded as a result of immersion in salt water, the hands are nearly all deteriorated and the dial heavily stained. Provenance Ex Miottel Collection, prior Heritage and via direct descent. An important piece of Titanic Judaica, offering some contrast to the well-known story of Isidor and Ida Straus.