Henry Aldridge & Son

The Devizes Auctioneers

RMS Titanic Auction Devizes April 29^th 2006

Post Sale Press Release

A very hectic month came to a record breaking finale when Henry Aldridge and Son, the worlds leading auctioneers of Titanic memorabilia held their April 29^th sale in Devizes. After taking over 250 items from the auction on exhibition prior to the regular viewings at the request of Belfast City Council to the “Made in Belfast” event. The auctioneers were delighted in the response received, over 20000 people viewed the lots on show in the fortnight preceding the auction.

High profile media coverage of the sale ensured a high turnout and the auctioneers were not disappointed. With television coverage ranging from local news to the NBC Today programme in the USA running a feature piece on the morning of the auction. Reports of the sale were read all over the world from Pravda in Russia to newspapers in Australia and India. A packed saleroom and seven telephone lines led to several record breaking prices at the auction which without doubt offered some of the most important fresh to the market artifacts relating to the great ship in recent years. 

Walter Lord's A Night to Remember is widely regarded as one of the most important books relating to the Titanic and the sequel A Night Lives On is equally highly thought of. One passenger who is featured in both is the American authoress Helen Churchill Candee who was without doubt a pioneer in her chosen field. As a woman traveling alone on Titanic she soon found a small group of intellectual fellow passengers with whom she passed the time. These included Archibald Gracie, Hugh Woolner, Edward Kent, Bjorn Stffanson, James Clinch Smith and E.P. Colley. On the night of April 14^th after the collision Mrs Candee Churchill persuaded her friend Edward Kent to take two items that were family heirlooms from her for safekeeping as she thought his chances of survival might be higher than her own. One of these items was gold portrait miniature of her mother, which is illustrated in A Night Lives On, this together with a unique 36 page handwritten account of Mrs Churchill Candee’s time on Titanic and the weeks leading upto the voyage were the two highest profile items in the auction. Both sold for record breaking figures, the locket realized a staggering £57000 selling to a private collector from the USA on the telephone and the manuscript to a collector from Europe for £48000.

But there were 368 other lots in the auction; the next highest price was for a stunning lettercard written onboard the Titanic on the morning of April 11^th as she arrived in Queenstown by First Class Passenger Stanley May.  It described the ship in great detail as well as the near collision as Titanic left Southampton with the liner New York, it sold to a collector from the UK in the room for £22000. Another letter written onboard was from Second Class Passenger Edwina Troutt, although not in superb condition it sold for just above top estimate at £15000. Other significant pieces included a single page from an Edwardian scrap album. The interest in this piece was in the fact that it showed Collapsible A, which was the last lifeboat to be recovered on the 13^th May 1912 nearly a month after the sinking. A very graphic first person description of the recovery accompanied the photos and it sold for £9000 to a private collector in the room. There is a premium in the value for items that were onboard Titanic, however rare pre maiden voyage items are also heavily in demand. One lot in particular was a First Class Plan of Accommodation for the ship, this example in excellent condition, remarkable considering it was made from a form of tissue paper sold for £11000 against an estimate of £6000-£8000. Provenance is one of the biggest factors when determining the value of certain items of Titanic memorabilia and one particular lot offered had it in abundance. A small oak picture frame measuring little more than 10ins made from Wreckwood of the Titanic but sold complete with the original letter from the crewman who recovered it onboard the Minia, Bertram King. The Minia was one of the cable laying ships that was charted by the White Star Line to recover bodies after the sinking and Mr King made this driftwood into a small picture frame. What he would never have imagined is that over 90 years later it would be sold to a collector for £12500.

William Angle was a second class passenger traveling back to the USA with his wife Florence; he decided to send a postcard from the ship in which the last line hauntingly says, “Keep this postcard of the maiden voyage of the Titanic as a souvenir”. The card was also postmarked in the onboard post office on Titanic and carried the all important Transatlantic Postmark 7 franking; it sold for a top estimate £7000 to a collector in the room. Images of the Titanic are unusual and very valuable when they are first generation. Lot 358 was a 4ins x 3ins image of Titanic and Olympic together at Harland and Wolff taken on March 6^th 1912 by Emerson Herdman, the uncle of Ernest Herdman the longest ever serving Chairman of Belfast Harbour Commission. Against fierce bidding in the room and on the telephone it sold for £7000.

The next auction of Titanic and White Star Line memorabilia is on September 30^th and entries are invited until July 30^th. Contact the auctioneers on 0044 1380 729199 or visit www.henry-aldridge.co.uk for qualified, confidential and professional advice regarding any item relating to Titanic, White Star Line, Cunard or Ocean Liner Memorabilia.