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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The prices include an auction-house fee known as the 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,” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said.

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

The Titanic is still a subject of worldwide fascination, in part because of the range of passengers aboard the ship, from paupers to 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 lifeboat No. 1, which was launched carrying 12 people despite having a capacity for 40. Its failure to pick up survivors from the frigid water became a source of controversy.

The survivors were eventually picked up by the RMS Carpathia.

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

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