Blood-stained lifejacket from the Titanic fetches 34,000 at auction
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A blood-stained, oily lifejacket from the Titanic sold for £34,000 at a New York auction last night.
The cork-filled jacket, which is also torn in parts, is believed to be one of only six still existing from the doomed ocean liner.
It was found by farmer John James Dunbar after the ship hit an iceberg and sank off Newfoundland in April 1912.
Found during the initial search for survivors and owned by the same family for 96 years, this lifejacket from the Titanic has been sold at auction in New York
Christie’s, the auctioneers, said it was thought Mr Dunbar had been aboard one of the ships sent out to search for bodies after the tragedy.
It was possible the lifejacket had been on someone pulled from the water.
A Christie’s spokeswoman said: ‘It is well documented that all such ships brought back pieces of floating debris, such as pieces of wood and deck chairs. John James Dunbar apparently did this sort of thing whenever help was needed.
'It is obvious that this lifejacket has been in the water for a period of time, which would account for the the absence of any printed marking and the presence of oil and possibly blood stains.’
The lifejacket was the star attraction in an auction of ocean liner memorabilia was bought by an unknown telephone bidder for £34,692 - a higher price than was expected.
The other main attraction at the auction was a second-class passenger list carried by 12-year-old survivor Bertha Watt.
The list made £18,362 in a lot that included the girl’s high-school essay describing the night the Titanic went down on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York with the loss of 1,517 passengers and crew.
Titanic expert Gregg Dietrich said that the cork-filled jackets were so heavy and hard that many people - both survivors and victims of the disaster - were found to have broken their jaws on them when they hit the water after jumping from the ship.
Mr Dietrich said: ‘People may well have been knocked out by their life-vests as they hit the water.’
He believed the latest lifejacket may not have been used because the shoulder straps were intact.
People pulled from the water tended to have the jackets cut off to avoid skin chaffing.
The jacket came to light when Mr Dunbar’s descendents, the MacQuarrie family of Nova Scotia, approached Christie’s after last year’s £60,000 London sale.
They were among hundreds of people claiming to have Titanic memorabilia.
Mr Dietrich, who was called in to check them, said 99 per cent were reproductions.
But the Dunbar lifejacket was an exact match with two others known to have come from the ship, including one in the collection of the Titanic Historical Society in Massachusetts.
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