LONDON: A pocket watch, tickets and money found among the belongings of passengers on the Titanic are among items on sale at a UK auction later this month.

The gilt silver and brass watch was found among the possessions of Danish second-class passenger Hans Christensen Givard, who was among the 1,500 people who died when the vessel sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912.

His body was recovered from the North Atlantic and buried in Halifax, Canada, on 10 May 1912. Givard’s pockets contained a savings book, keys, cash in a wallet, a compass, a passport and the gilded pocket watch, which it is estimated will fetch around 50,000 ($66,000) at the April 26 auction.

The belongings were returned to his family and his descendants are now selling the watch.

Givard, 27, was travelling to the United States with two of his friends who also died in the disaster. “The watch’s movement is frozen in time at the moment the cold North Atlantic waters consumed not only its owner but the most famous ocean liner of all time, Titanic, on April 15, 1912,” said Andrew Aldridge, of Henry Aldridge and Son auctioneers.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2025