Titanic watch sold at auction

It is 90 years since the Titanic sank -- on April 15 1912

SOUTHAMPTON, England -- A Titanic passenger's gold plated watch which recorded the moment the 'unsinkable' ship sank has raised £19,800 ($28,464) at auction.

A first class menu from April 10, 1912, the first night out on the liner, also raised a world record amount for a menu from the Titanic.

It sold for £27,000 ($38,815) -- more than three times the amount a menu from the ship had previously sold for.

The watch was among 316 items sold at the auction held as part of the British Titanic Society Convention at Southampton, on the south England coast.

Millvina Dean, Britain's last Titanic survivor, opened the Titanic Voices Exhibition at the Maritime Museum, in Southampton, on Thursday.

She was nine weeks old when she made the fateful journey with her parents and brother.

Her father, Bertram, 27, died in the tragedy but her mother Georgetta and her older brother Bertram Jr. were put in a lifeboat with Millvina and survived.

At the opening, she said: "I am very flattered and honoured to be asked to open the exhibition. It's an historic time because it's the 90th anniversary."

The hands of the watch have remained at 3.21am, the exact moment eyewitnesses reported seeing the vessel disappear under the Atlantic Ocean on its maiden voyage.

This weekend marks the 90th anniversary of the tragedy which happened on April 15 1912.

The timepiece was rescued from the body of passenger John Gill, 24, a newly-married chauffeur, from Somerset, south west England, who had been making the voyage on his own to start a new life in America.

Passed on through Gill's family for generations, the watch was fitted with a new mechanism and dial, but the original dial was kept and has remained at the same time to mark the sinking which killed 1,521 people.

Other items owned by Gill and sold at the auction included a pocket comb which went for £11,500 ($16,532).

A canvas bag, in which his personal artifacts were sent home to England after being found off the coast of Canada, fetched £15,500 ($22,282).

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge told the UK's Press Association: "The auction has gone incredibly well and we have broken some world records for items from the Titanic sold at auction."