Today.Az » Weird / Interesting » Violin 'playing requiem' for Titanic sold
21 October 2013 [09:30] - Today.Az
A violin played by the Titanic's bandleader as the ship sank sold at
auction Saturday for more than $1.7 million, a UK-based auction house
said.
The price -- 1.1 million British pounds, when adding the
buyer's premium and tax -- is by far the highest ever fetched for
memorabilia tied to the sunken passenger ship, according to veteran
collector Craig Sopin.
"This figure is going to be hard to beat,"
said Sopin, who helped authenticate the fact the violin came from the
Titanic. "I can't think of anything else that is more iconic to come off
that ship."
According to survivors, Wallace Hartley's band played to calm passengers even as the ship sank beneath them.
The
scene was depicted in James Cameron's blockbuster movie "Titanic,"
which depicted Hartley and his band playing "Nearer, My God, to Thee" as
the ship took on water.
Hartley's body was reportedly pulled
from the water days after the April 1912 sinking with his violin case
still strapped to his back.
In 2006, the damaged violin was found
in the attic of a home in Britain. It was authenticated through testing
of salt water deposits, according to a statement released by Henry
Aldridge and Son, which hosted the auction in Wiltshire, England. The
violin was adorned with an engraved silver plate that connected it to
Hartley.
The names of the seller and the buyer have not been released.
The
famous wreckage was first discovered in 1985 off the coast of Halifax,
Nova Scotia. Since then there have been a number of research and
recovery expeditions, during which time the artifacts included in the
sale were found.
Interest in the shipwreck peaked again after the
release of the movie "Titanic" in 1997. The film grossed $1.8 billion
worldwide, making it the second highest grossing film in history,
according to Box Office Mojo, a site that tracks ticket sales.
Over the years, exhibitions of Titanic artifacts have made millions, and auctions have drawn high-priced sales.
In
2004, Guernsey's auctioned off memorabilia from the Titanic and a few
artifacts that had been passed down through the families of survivors.
An original menu sold for about $100,000, the president of the auction
house said at the time.
Sopin, a Philadelphia lawyer who has
between 300 or 400 Titanic artifacts, said the ocean liner's sinking is
"in a class all its own" when it comes to disasters, due to its unique
mix of historical, cultural and cinematic elements.
"The ship is a microcosm of society," he said, noting the different classes of people aboard the ship that fateful night.
And it had both villains and heroes -- Hartley and his fellow band members, none of whom survived, chief among the latter group.
"What
they were doing was actually causing a sense of calm on that ship,"
Sopin said. "You could only wonder the mass pandemonium that would have
occurred otherwise. It helped save a lot of lives."
/CNN/
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