London: Luxury watches made from what must be one of the rarest materials on Earth ? metal from the hull of the Titanic ? are going on sale in the United Kingdom for up to 75,000 pounds.
"We wanted to make a watch that had history and this is the rarest, most historical metal we could get hold of... This watch will give people the chance to carry a piece of history on their wrist," the Daily Mail quoted Yvan Arpa, the chief executive of Geneva-based Romain Jerome, which is making the watches.
Salvaged by divers from the wreck of the ocean liner which still lies 12,500 ft under the North Atlantic where it sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912 on its first voyage from Britain to New York, the metal has been blended with modern ship-building steel to make the casing of the timepieces.
Coal which was to have been burnt in the Titanic's furnaces and which was also recovered from the seabed has been mixed with ceramics to create the black dials for the watches which will be marketed under the name Titanic-DNA in a limited run of 2,012 ? a reference to the 100th anniversary of the disaster in five years' time.