A violin that was apparently played to calm passengers on the Titanic as it sank was sold for £900,000 ($1.45 million) in just 10 minutes at auction in Wiltshire.
The violin was played by band leader Wallace Hartley, who died along with 1,517 others as the ship went down. It had a guide price of £300,000 ($480,000).
Auctioneer Alan Aldridge said the violin was the “rarest and most iconic” piece of Titanic memorabilia.
Many of the other items up for sale, such as photographs, newspapers and crockery, were sold for between £10 and a few hundred pounds.
Alan Aldridge set the bidding at £50 for the violin, which was lot 230 of 251, so “two of his friends could bid” – but after just a couple of minutes it had passed £100,000.
It eventually sold for £900,000 after fierce bidding between two telephone bidders.
The violin was apparently played to calm passengers on the Titanic as it sank
Wallace Hartley has become part of the ship’s legend after leading his fellow musicians in playing as the vessel sank. They are famously said to have played the hymn Nearer My God To Thee.
It had taken seven years for the Devizes auction house, Henry Aldridge & Son, to authenticate the instrument.
Several experts were used, including forensic scientists who said the wood still contained salt deposits from the sea water.
Some people still doubt whether the violin is the genuine article, however, and believe it could not have survived being submerged in the sea.
But it is claimed the violin survived in a leather case strapped to Wallace Harley’s body who was found wearing his cork and linen lifejacket.
A diary entry by his fiancée, Maria Robinson, said it was saved from the water and returned to her.
Following her death in 1939, the violin was given to her local Salvation Army citadel and was later passed on to the current anonymous owner’s mother in the early 1940s.
The auction house said it had attracted interest from collectors all over the world and added that more than 315,000 people viewed it during a three-month exhibition in the US.
The most money previously paid for a piece of Titanic memorabilia is thought to have been a plan of the ship used in the 1912 inquiry into the sinking. This was bought by a private collector at auction for £220,000 in 2011.
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After seven years of investigation, auctioneers found out that the violin thought to be the one played by the band leader of the Titanic as it sank is genuine.
Wallace Hartley and his orchestra famously played on as the Titanic sank in 1912 and were among the 1,500 who died.
In 2006, Titanic specialist auction house Henry Aldridge and Son in Wiltshire were approached by the violin’s owner who wanted to sell it.
Experts commissioned by the auction house confirmed it was Wallace Hartley’s.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said they had spent the last seven years gathering the evidence and were confident that “beyond reasonable doubt this was Wallace Hartley’s violin”.
“When we first saw the violin we had to keep a lid on our excitement because it was almost as if it was too good to be true,” Andrew Aldridge said.
“The silver fish plate on the violin along with the other items it was with suggested it was either authentic or an extremely elaborate hoax.
“Everything needed to be researched properly and the correct experts had to be commissioned.”
The tests were carried out by a range of specialists including the UK’s Forensic Science Service which concluded the “corrosion deposits on it were considered compatible with immersion in sea water”.
After seven years of investigation, auctioneers found out that the violin thought to be the one played by the band leader of the Titanic as it sank is genuine
Wallace Hartley’s body was recovered about 10 days after the doomed liner sank but the violin was not listed among the inventory of items found with him.Several newspaper reports from the time said he had been found “fully dressed with his violin strapped to his body”.
There have been various theories about what happened to the instrument which range from it floating away to being stolen by someone involved in handling the bodies of the deceased.
A violin was returned to Wallace Hartley’s fiancée Maria Robinson, in Bridlington in East Yorkshire, and a transcript of a telegram dated 19 July 1912 to Canada’s Provincial of Nova Scotia was found in her diary.
It said: “I would be most grateful if you could convey my heartfelt thanks to all who have made possible the return of my late fiancé’s violin.”
Craig Sopin, 55, who lives in Philadelphia, US, and owns one of the world’s largest collections of Titanic memorabilia, said: “Popular belief is that the violin was lost or ferreted away but sometimes miracles happen and it has here.
“As far as Titanic memorabilia is concerned it is the most important piece that has ever come up and that includes artefacts recovered from the seabed such as the crow’s nest bell.”
The violin, thought to be worth a six-figure sum, is the property of an unidentified individual in Lancashire, UK.
The instrument is due to go on display at the Belfast City Hall in April, but no date has yet been set to auction it.
