A piece of Titanic memorabilia used in the 1912 inquiry over the ill-fated ship’s sinking sold at auction for $243,000, the Henry Aldridge and Son Ltd auction house announced April 24, according to CNN.
Prepared for the 1912 inquiry by the the Naval Architects Department of the White Star Line, the 33-foot plan of the RMS Titanic “is quite simply one of the most important and well documented pieces of Titanic memorabilia in existence today,” the auction house said in a statement to CNN. References to the plan can be found throughout the transcripts of the 1912 inquiry as hundreds of witnesses testified about the ship’s April 15, 1912, demise.
The plan was used by witnesses and experts to establish the cause of the tragedy and even contains original chalk marks showing what happenedhttps://t.co/mxD72YqbTd
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) April 24, 2023
Designed to be hung from the ceiling so inquiry participants could easily reference it with a pointer, the linen plan still bears visible evidence of the holes made by cables used to suspend it over investigators and witnesses, according to CNN. In addition to the holes, red and green chalk marks indicating where the iceberg was suspected of penetrating the ship’s five water-tight bulkheads are also still visible. (RELATED: Titanic Letter Expected To Sell For More Than $28,000, Who Would Buy It?)
“She sank 111 years ago but the memory of those passengers and crew lives on through the memorabilia,” auction house managing director Andrew Aldridge told CNN, adding that the winning bid reflects “the enduring appeal of the Titanic story.”
Considered “unsinkable” at the time it set sail on its maiden voyage April 10, 1912, the RMS Titanic was the largest ocean liner in service before it struck an iceberg April 14 in the North Atlantic en route to New York City. More than 1,500 people died in the subsequent sinking, with the high number of casualties attributed in large part to a lack of sufficient lifeboats onboard.
Many maritime reforms were implemented due to the findings of the inquiry, including providing enough lifeboats for passengers and crew, more lifeboat training for crew members and the installation of wireless telegraphs on all ships, as well as enough operators to monitor the communication devices overnight.
In addition to the large Titanic inquiry plan, the auction house sold an accommodation plan of the ship for $75,000, items related to the Titanic rescue ship Carpathia for $106,000 and a mural from the RMS Queen Mary for $68,000, CNN reported.