Titanic Victim’s Pocket Watch Auctioned

A Russian passenger, Sinai Kantor, drowned on the Titanic’s fatal journey. His body was recovered eight days later, embalmed, identified, and then buried in New York. His wife survived the trip. At the time, he had an open-face pocket watch with Hebrew numerals in his pocket. It is 3 inches in diameter, unmarked, but it has a Swiss-made movement. The back of the watch has an embossed design of Moses holding the Ten Commandments. Besides the pocket watch, Kantor’s wife also recovered his clothing, passport, notebook, wallets, money, a telescope and a corkscrew. The watch, stained and not working, was sold at a Heritage auction for $57,500. The successful bidder owns several other watches that were retrieved after the Titanic disaster. The Kantor watch was accompanied by a letter of provenance from the descendant and other related papers.