A chunk of the Titanic's hull is among 5,000 artifacts from the world's most famous shipwreck that will be auctioned in April at the 100th anniversary of the disaster.
Nearly a century after the April 15, 1912, sinking of the ocean liner that hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic, a New York City auction is being readied by Guernsey’s Auctioneers & Brokers.
The auction house has sold prized Beatles photos, famous jewels of the late Princess Diana and beloved Jerry Garcia guitars. But Guernsey’s President Arlan Ettinger calls this the most significant auction they’ve ever handled.
"Who on this planet doesn’t know the story of the Titanic and isn’t fascinated by it?" he asked.
The auction will be conducted 100 years, plus a day, after the Titanic set sail from England with New York as its destination.
The collection was appraised in 2007 at $189 million, including some intellectual property alongside the items plucked by remote-controlled probes from the pitch-black depths more than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) below the ocean’s surface.
Artifacts include a 17-ton section of the Titanic’s hull, as well as personal belongings of passengers and crew, such as a mesh purse and eyeglasses. A bronze cherub that once adorned the Grand Staircase is among the collection, as are fine china, table settings and ship fittings — even the stand upon which the ship’s wheel stood.
The planned sale could include a trove of archaeological data and visuals of the wreck, as well as the only detailed map of the vast ocean floor where all the artifacts were scattered after the Titanic’s sinking.
By court order, the items cannot be sold individually and must go to a buyer who agrees to properly maintain the collection and make it available for occasional public viewing. The sale is subject to court approval.
Ettinger and officials with RMS Titanic Inc., which salvaged the artifacts from the Titanic wreck, spoke to The Associated Press in advance of a media preview Thursday in New York. The AP first reported on the auction Dec. 29, based on financial filings by RMS Titanic.
A porthole from the RMS Titanic which was recovered from the ocean floor during an expedition to the site of the tragedy. (AP Photo)
The Titanic’s sinking claimed the lives of more than 1,500 of the 2,228 passengers and crew. An international team led by oceanographer Robert Ballard located the wreckage in 1985 about 400 miles (643 kilometers) off Newfoundland, Canada.
The research materials could be a road map to future salvage expeditions because of the new information they provide on the wreck site.
"We are opening the door of opportunity for the future of the Titanic," said Brian Wainger, a spokesman for Premier Exhibitions Inc., of which RMS Titanic is a division.
But the clock is ticking on thousands of additional artifacts embedded in the ocean floor around the wreck, an area subject to a century of extreme ocean conditions such as cold temperatures and treacherous currents.
"I think it’s fair to say that we have only touched the surface," Wainger said.
The deteriorating hulk of the Titanic is off limits to salvage.
Wainger and Ettinger declined to speculate on who might bid on the collection.
Wainger said, "Any individual can fall in love with any of the different artifacts because so many of them are personal. When you read the personal stories, you recognize the tragedy."
Premier Exhibitions has been displaying the Titanic artifacts in exhibitions worldwide. The items were recovered from the shipwreck in expeditions in 1987, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2004.
RMS Titanic, which has overseen the artifacts for 18 years, said the public company decided to auction the collection in response to shareholders’ wishes that the "company go out and make money."
"It’s better to be in the hands of a private institution that doesn’t have the same short-term profit obligations that a public company has," he said.
In 2010, RMS Titanic collaborated with some of the world’s leading experts in the most technologically advanced expedition to the Titanic, undertaking the first comprehensive mapping survey of the vessel with 3-D imagery from bow to stern.
A camera in a remote-controlled submersible vehicle skimmed over the stern, seemingly transporting viewers through scenes of jagged rusticles sprouting from the deck, the captain’s bathtub and wooden elements that scientists had previously believed had disappeared in the harsh, deep ocean environment.
The expedition fully mapped the wreck site, documenting the entire debris field for the first time.
"Titanic" director James Cameron also has led teams to the wreck to record the bow and the stern.
