A battered, seawater-damaged violin, that was played as the Titanic sank in 1912, is expected to fetch a record price of nearly half a million dollar at an auction here.
Titanic's band leader Wallace Hartley famously 'played on' the violin as the ship sank in the North Atlantic in 1912 killing 1,517 people, a scene later immortalised by James Cameron's multiple Oscar winning movie, "Titanic".
"It is just a remarkable piece of history," said Andrew Aldridge, of auctioneer Henry Aldridge and Son. "I have been an auctioneer for 20 years, but I have never seen an item that brings out this degree of emotion in people before."
The instrument is likely to fetch the highest amount ever for a piece of Titanic memorabilia - up to nearly half a million dollars, the English auction house said Thursday.
The auction house, which specialises in Titanic memorabilia, expects the violin to fetch more than 200,000 pounds (USD 323,300) when it goes under the hammer tomorrow, the BBC reported.
All the musicians drowned in the disaster, including Hartley. His body was plucked from the icy waters several days later, with the large leather case in which he carried his violin still strapped to him.
"The band playing on was an incredibly selfless act. William Hartley is an iconic individual. That is represented in the instrument," said Andrew.
The auctioneers have spent seven years trying to authenticate the instrument and said in May the violin was Hartley's "beyond reasonable doubt".
The violin was an engagement gift from his fiancee Maria Robinson and can be seen in the exhibition at Dewsbury Town Hall along with a leather luggage case, initialled W. H. H. (Wallace Henry Hartley).
After the Titanic sank in April 1912, Robinson wrote in her diary that the violin had been recovered from the Atlantic and given to her.
So far, the most expensive piece of Titanic memorabilia bought at auction is a 32-foot-long schematic drawing of the ship that was used in the official inquiry into the tragedy, Aldridge said. That sold two years ago for about USD 350,000.
A letter Hartley sent to his "dear parents" from on board ship was auctioned in April for nearly USD 150,000.
"Just a line to say we have got away all right," Hartley wrote. "It's been a bit of a rush but I am just getting a little settled. This is a fine ship.
