Gold watch frozen at time steamship exploded and sank off NC in 1838 up for auction
Gold watches plucked from the historic Pulaski shipwreck are up for auction this month, including one famously frozen at 11:05 — 5 minutes after the ship reportedly sank off North Carolina 182 years ago.
The steamship, known as “the Titanic of its time,” was carrying some of the wealthiest people in the Southeast when it exploded on June 14, 1838, and salvagers believe it went down with up to 100,000 gold and silver coins.
Four gold watches and 500-plus gold and silver coins have been collected off the wreck site by Florida-based Blue Water Ventures International.
The four watches are part of a “Clocks, Watches & Scientific Instruments” auction ending April 14. Boston-based auction house Skinner estimates the watches are worth $12,000 to $15,000 each, according to the auction book.
All four are 18 karat gold, made in England, and some are described as having “remarkably little wear,” despite being on the ocean floor for 180 years.
In the case of the watch with hands still frozen in place, it is described as “retaining much of its detail” with a “multicolored roman numeral dial that still shows the engraved floral center, and gilt hand set marking 11:05.”
The watch and a gold chain were stuck together in a grapefruit-sized encrustation when found in 2018, McClatchy News reported.
Certified Collectibles Group handled preservation of the watch once it was removed from the tangle.
“It’s very unusual to see an artifact with that sort of impression of a historic moment, when a ship sank,” Max Spiegel of Certified Collectibles Group told McClatchy News in 2018. “Think about how fragile the watch’s hands are, yet they survived in that exact position. It’s one of the most exciting finds we’ve handled.”
The Pulaski was traveling from Savannah, Georgia, to Baltimore when one of its boilers exploded 30 miles off North Carolina, according to the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
“She carried a crew of about 36 and close to 150 passengers, many of whom were killed immediately by the scalding steam,” the state reports. “Others drowned or perished when struck by falling wreckage.”
The exact location of the ship was lost for more than a century, but proven when Blue Water Ventures and its partner Endurance Exploration Group found two artifacts at the site engraved with the name “Pulaski,” McClatchy News reported in 2018.
This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 1:26 PM with the headline "Gold watch frozen at time steamship exploded and sank off NC in 1838 up for auction."