Swiss turn Titanic into timepieces

If you've got between $7,800 and $173,100 to spare and fancy owning a piece of history, Geneva watchmaker Romain Jerome has just the thing for you: a watch incorporating steel and coal from the Titanic. Watches in the "Titanic-DNA" collection are made from gold, platinum and steel, the latter coming from a 1.5 kg piece of the …

[Dave]

Titanic Watch

Nice watch, but whatever you do don't go swimming with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice ...

... what next ? Hollocaust necklaces with bits of gas chamber ? Or perhaps a nice Hiroshima pen with mangled building wreakage ? Am I the only person that thinks that this is sick ?

[Anonymous Coward]

One important question?

Is this watch waterproof?

[Greg Nelson]

Misdirection

Someone once said of Arthur Koestler, author of 'Ghost in the Machine', that he was all antenna and no brain. While the characterization may have had some merit, Koestler, with his antenna vibrating went places other dared not. His book on humour was one such example. Lying is an area I would have liked Koestler to investigate. The phenomenology of lying is aptly fascinating. For example, one pathological liar I've known a long time will pepper his extemporaneous lies with repetitions of quantities. Four kegs, four days, four dead, but spread over the story. Liars seem to need to steer clear of their secret intent. And so I come to the deep, dead clocks being sold as..."It is a message of hope, of life stronger than death, of rebirth."

Which is to say it's a base, opportunistic exploitation of the dead for monetary gain. You sick, sick bastards.

[Anonymous Coward]

"World's Largest Metaphor Strikes Iceberg"

What a bizarre idea. I mentally associate the Titanic with hubris, disaster, misplaced optimism, the indifference of nature, futility, waste, decay, and Lew Grade. None of those things make me want to buy a watch, with which to contemplate the unstoppable passage of time to inevitable death. Especially not a watch made out of coal!

I picture a timepiece of immense mechanical strength that breaks catastrophically if a raindrop hits it.

Perhaps he could manufacture a range of umbrellas made out of flammable fabric from the Hindenberg airship.

[Ken Hunter]

And I just wanted a deckchair

And I thought the Cafe in the Anne Frank museum was the height of bad taste

[Dan]

DNA?

Why do they call it the "Titanic-DNA" series?

Are they implying that traces of the passengers are on the steel from the ship now in the watch?

Since neither ships nor watches normally are built with DNA.

Or maybe its a stupid attempt to make the whole thing sound sophisticated.

[John Munyard]

Tasteless

Further proof (if any were needed) that there is no human dignity left in the world when there's a buck to be made.

Perhaps instead of making 2,012 watches to commerorate 100 years since the tragedy, they should make 1,517 to commemorate the number of people who died so they could turn it into a marketing campaign...

[Dale]

Good Idea

"Perhaps instead of making 2,012 watches to commerorate 100 years since the tragedy, they should make 1,517 to commemorate the number of people who died so they could turn it into a marketing campaign..."

To help further this campaign they should also engrave the name, d.o.b, address etc of one person per watch. They would be able sell them for even more!

[Peter W]

not really made of the titanic

1.5kg. 2012 watches. Simple maths says its less than a gram of original steel in each watch....

or to put it another way, its a crass money making scheme based on a disaster without even the benefit of the watches being properly connected with the titanic...

[Marvin the Martian]

Strong connections

Well, I wouldn't like to be "properly connected to the titanic" if it involves having a sizeable chunk of it connected to my wrist...

The entire DNA-metaphor and anything using it should be avoided like the plague, as it comes with a 98% chance of being a dimwitted misrepresentation. (e.g. "The sourcecode is the DNA of an operating system" --- yes, and methylation then? Do you mean that two identical copies of the OS will over time grow to differ more and more while still having the same source? That's extremely worrying! Oh you didn't mean that, you just meant I heard something about DNA and understood it to be modern 'n fancy? Thanks Richard Dawkins, you bastard.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Crikey!

Nearer My wrist to Thee ?????

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: DNA?

So-named because the Titanic went Down - Not Across.

I'll get my lifejacket.

[Steve Roper]

Some will buy them

The worst thing is, those watches will sell. Celebrities with a "bad boy" or "bitch" public image will find a lot of mileage with these. Then there are wealthy art collectors and company executives who, Vaderlike, revel in their bastardry. And they'll do this knowing that despite the inevitable booing and hissing, they'll make that much more from all the publicity and scandal surrounding it.

It makes me wish that, as in a horror movie, there would be a curse on the things - that anyone who buys or sells one will die by drowning within seven days of touching it.

Surely the families of the survivors can sue these scum?!