Public Domain( John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Australia)
A handwritten note written by a first class passenger is up for auction at Henry Aldridge & Son reports The News. The note was recovered from the body of Titanic first class passenger Alexander Oskar Holverson.
“It is oversized, hand written on Titanic letterhead by a victim just a day before the ship hit the iceberg, mentions the food, the music and the elite on board, contains an ominous message with regards to the fate of the ship, was carried by its author into the Atlantic and, thence, on to the body recovery ship and shows evidence of its submersion in salt water.”
The note is expected to fetch £80,000 ($106,050 USD) when it comes up for auction on 21 October.
A locker key found on the body of Titanic steward Sidney Sedunary was auctioned off on Saturday for $104,000 reports Fox News. The key was sold by auctioneer Henry Aldridge & Son.
Source: Locker key from the Titanic sells at auction for $104,000 (Fox News,23 Oct 2016)
*Fox News reports that a rare Titanic key with a brass tag stamped “Locker 14 D Deck” is up for sale. It was found in the body of Titanic Third Class Steward Sidney Sedunary. A direct descendant of Sedunary has put it up for auction with well known Titanic memorabilia auctioneer Henry Aldridge & Son. It is valued at somewhere between $36,640-$61.070. It will be auctioned off on 22 Oct 2016.
*Premier Exhibitions has inked a deal with Infinity Filmed Entertainment Group and Partners in Motion to allow them exclusive access to Titanic artifacts for a new television series. The series titled Titanic: Stories from the Deep will explore the stories behind the artifacts. The series is expected to move into production in 2017. (Titanic Artifacts To Be Examined In New Series, TVReal.ws 14Oct2016)
*I never knew there were people that collected mourning covers sent via the mail. There were many printed after the Titanic disaster for people to mail to friends or others indicating their sadness at the tragedy. A writer for Linn’s Stamp News looked recently at two such but unmailed covers. What caught his attention was not the cover itself (which he said was typical of the period)but the words inside: “She struck where the white and fleecy waves,
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side,
Like the horns of an angry bull.
Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board,
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! Ho! The breakers roared.”
A rare Titanic menu was auctioned off this last weekend (the same
auction where the Titanic telegram failed to sell)for an astounding
$118,750. From finebooksmagazine.com:
The remarkable Titanic final dinner menu is signed by first class
passengers Edward P. Calderhead of New York City; Spencer V. Silverthorne of St. Louis; George E. Graham, a sales manager from
Winnipeg, Canada; James R. McGough, a buyer from Philadelphia; and JohnIrwin Flynn of Brooklyn, and is one of three pieces of memorabilia relating to the sinking offered in the auction. An oil painting of the iceberg by rescue ship passenger Laura Wilson Luce of Titusville, Pennsylvania sold for $12,500 and a menu from the R.M.S. Carpathia, the ship which first reached the Titanic following the sinking, sold for $3,125.
Sky News is reporting the Titanic iceberg photo fetched £20,000 ($30,628USD), the famous Titanic biscuit from the lifeboat fetched £15,000 ($22,971 USD) at today’s auction at Henry Aldridge & Son.
Photograph of iceberg taken by chief steward of Prinz Adalbert on morning of 15 April 1912 near where Titanic sank. At the time he had not learned of the Titanic disaster. Smears of red paint along the base caught his attention. The photo and accompanying statement were sent to Titanic’s lawyers, which hung in their boardroom until the firm dissolved in 2002. Public Domain
Livescience.com has an article today that reports there is some doubt about the iceberg photograph up for auction is the one that collided with Titanic.
“There are two photos of icebergs from the area on the day following the collision, both of which purport to be the Titanic iceberg,” said Grant Bigg, an environmental scientist at the University of Sheffield in England.”
Bigg found there was another iceberg photo taken by Captain William George Squares de Carteret of the SS Minia. And believes it matches the dimensions that survivors gave of it. But there is no definitive proof that it is either.
A picture of the possible iceberg that doomed Titanic along with a
statement by a chief steward is up for auction at Henry Aldridge & Son. The steward describes seeing red paint on the iceberg that came from scraping a vessel. The photograph and statement signed by the steward were given to the White Star Line lawyers Burlingham, Montgomery & Beecher. After the inquiry it was framed and hung in their boardroom until the firm went out of business in 2002.
Photograph of iceberg taken by chief steward of Prinz Adalbert on morning of 15 April 1912 near where Titanic sank. At the time he had not learned of the Titanic disaster. Smears of red paint along the base caught his attention. The photo and accompanying statement were sent to Titanic’s lawyers, which hung in their boardroom until the firm dissolved in 2002. Public Domain
The photo was taken by M. Linoenewald, chief steward on German liner Prinz Adalbert. The Adalbert passed through the area where Titanic sank on 15 April 1912 but the disaster was not yet known to them. He took the photograph of the iceberg and later had three other crew members sign the statement as witnesses. The picture was included in Walter Lord’s book A Night To Remember.
Four of the remaining partners in the firm are putting it up for sale
through Henry Aldridge on 24 October 2015. It is lot 209 and estimated to fetch £15,000 ($23,000USD).
It can never be said that auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son never fail to see a profit in any Titanic memorabilia. A biscuit that was part of a survival kit in one of the Titanic lifeboats–and put into a Kodak photograph envelope by a passenger on Carpathia–is up for auction on 24 Oct 2015. The estimated price is between £8,000 – £10,000. Henry Aldridge tells the Daily Mirror:
“It is the world’s most valuable biscuit.We don’t know which lifeboat the biscuit came from but there are no other Titanic lifeboat biscuits in existence to my knowledge. It is incredible that this biscuit has survived such a dramatic event – the sinking of the world’s largest ocean liner – costing 1,500 lives.”
It really does prove Hard Tack can last a very long time indeed.
A couple of rare Titanic items are up for auction:a ticket from the Turkish bath, a lunch menu, and a letter written six months after the disaster by Lady Duff Gordon’s secretary. The auction for these items is at Lion Heart Autographs in New York on 30 September. Bids are being accepted online.
Here is an article from National Geographic about the auction and its historic value:
