Life jacket worn by a passenger on Titanic who survived auctioned off for over $900,000

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

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

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

The cream-colored life jacket, made of canvas with sections filled with cork, has been displayed in museums in the United States and Europe.

“There are only a handful of life jackets worn by survivors left in existence today,” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge told Cover Media, adding that most are kept in museums and are unlikely to be sold.

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

Prices include an auction fee called a buyer’s premium.

“These record prices illustrate the continuing interest in the story of the Titanic and the respect for the passengers and crew whose stories are immortalized in these memorabilia,” said auctioneer Andrew Aldridge.

Considered the world’s most luxurious liner and described as “virtually unsinkable”, the Titanic struck an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland during its maiden voyage from England to New York. It sank within hours on April 15, 1912. About 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers and crew died.

The Titanic still sparks worldwide fascination, in part because of the diversity of passengers aboard the ship, from the poor to the plutocrats.

Francatelli was traveling with her employer, fashion designer Lucy Duff Gordon, and Lucy’s husband, Cosmo Duff Gordon. All three survived in the ship’s No. 1 lifeboat, which had been launched with 12 people when it had a capacity of 40 people. Its failure to recover survivors from the frigid waters became a source of controversy.

The survivors were eventually picked up by the RMS Carpathia.

In 2025, a the collector paid a record price of more than $2 million for a gold pocket watch linked to the Titanic. The 18-karat gold watch was given to its original owner, Isidor Straus, by his wife, Ida Straus, for her 43rd birthday. Straus, an American businessman and owner of Macy’s, and his wife were first-class passengers on the Titanic.

The couple were known for their final act of selflessness aboard the sinking ship. The Strauses were offered two seats on a lifeboat once the ship hit an iceberg, according to the British government’s National Archives, but they gave up their places to younger people.