Luxury Watches Made From The Titanic

For the man or woman who has everything: watches made from pieces of the Titanic.

Two immediate reactions:

(1) We presume they are reliably waterproof.

(2) This seems to be a fitting gift for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Steel and coal from the Titanic have been transformed into a new line of luxury wristwatches that claim to capture the essence of the legendary oceanliner which sank in 1912.

Geneva watchmaker Romain Jerome SA billed its “Titanic-DNA” collection as among the most exclusive pieces showcased this week at Baselworld, the watch and jewellery industry’s largest annual trade fair.

“It is very luxurious and very inaccessible,” said Yvan Arpa, chief executive of the three-year-old company that hopes the limited edition watches will attract both collectors and garrulous luxury goods buyers.

“So many rich people buy incredibly complicated watches without understanding how they work, because they want a story to tell,” he said. “To them we offer a story.”

The North Atlantic wrecksite of the Titanic, which hit an iceberg and sank on its first voyage from the English port of Southampton to New York, have been protected for more than a decade but many relics were taken in early diving expeditions.

Romain Jerome said it purchased a piece of the hull weighing about 1.5 kg (3 pounds) that was retrieved in 1991, but declined to identify the seller. The metal has been certified as authentic by the Titanic’s builders Harland and Wolff.

To make the watches, which were offered for sale for the first time in Basel for between $7,800 and $173,100, the Swiss company created an alloy using the slab from the Titanic with steel being used in a Harland and Wolff replica of the vessel.

The gold, platinum and steel time pieces have black dial faces made of lacquer paint that includes coal recovered from the debris field of the Titanic wrecksite, offered for sale by the U.S. company RMS Titanic Inc.

And there is of course talk about how symbolic the watch is, representing hope, a remembrance of the passengers etc. etc. Etc.

But the real appeal is: it’s a hard-to-find item and something most people won’t have or can’t afford.

Hopefully, if you look at one of these watches while drinking a soda with ice cubes, the watch doesn’t suddenly veer and get pulled into your glass.