The life jacket worn by Laura Mabel Francatelli as she escaped the sinking Titanic has been sold for $906,000 in an auction in London on Saturday.
The life jacket is signed by Francatelli and other survivors from Titanic lifeboat No. 1.
The item was the auction’s showstopper, sold to an unidentified telephone bidder for almost three times the presale estimate of approximately $336,750.
The auction, held by Henry Aldridge & Son auctioneers in Devizes, England, sold a variety of Titanic memorabilia, including a seat cushion from one of the lifeboats, which fetched $527,000 and was bought by the owners of two Titanic museums in the US.
“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 told the Associated Press.
Francatelli was a first-class passenger on the “practically unsinkable” ocean liner, traveling with her employer, fashion designer Lucy Duff Gordon, and Lucy’s husband Cosmo Duff Gordon.
Controversy of Francatelli's lifeboat
All three survived in the Titanic’s lifeboat No. 1, launched with only 12 people on board despite having a capacity for 40. Their failure to rescue any survivors from the ice-cold water later became a source of controversy.
Francatelli was among the 710 people to survive the ship’s crash into an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland during its maiden voyage. The Titanic sank in mere hours on April 15, 1912, killing approximately 1,500 passengers and crew.
The record auction price for a piece of Titanic memorabilia is 1.56 million pounds (approximately $2 million at the time) paid in 2024 for a gold pocket watch given to the captain of a ship that rescued 700 Titanic survivors.