April 18, 2026 / 4:25 PM EDT / CBS/AP
A life jacket worn by a passenger who escaped the sinking RMS Titanic sold at auction Saturday for $906,000. The flotation device belonged to first-class passenger Laura Mabel Francatelli and bears her signature along with those of other survivors from the same lifeboat.
The cream-colored, canvas life jacket with cork-filled sections was the highlight of a Titanic memorabilia sale conducted by Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, western England. It was bought by an unidentified telephone bidder for well above the pre-sale estimate of 250,000 to 350,000 pounds. Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge noted the rarity of such items, saying only a handful of life jackets actually worn by survivors still exist and most are held by museums.
Also sold at the sale was a lifeboat seat cushion, which brought $527,000 and was purchased by the owners of two Titanic museums in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Branson, Missouri. Those prices include the auction house’s 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 immortalized by these items of memorabilia,” Aldridge said.
The Titanic, touted at the time as the world’s most luxurious liner and described as “practically unsinkable,” struck an iceberg off Newfoundland and sank during its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912. About 1,500 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew died. The disaster remains a focus of global fascination in part because the passenger list ranged from the very poor to the very wealthy.
Francatelli was traveling with fashion designer Lucy Duff Gordon and her husband, Cosmo Duff Gordon. All three were among 12 people who left in Lifeboat No. 1, which had room for about 40 and later drew controversy for not returning to rescue people in the water. The survivors were later picked up by the RMS Carpathia.
Last year a collector paid more than $2 million for an 18-carat gold pocket watch linked to the ship. The watch had been owned by Isidor Straus and given to him by his wife, Ida; the Strauses are remembered for reportedly giving up their lifeboat places to younger passengers during the evacuation.