Original ticket for voyage on Titanic fetches 56250 dollars at auction

Washington, April 16 (ANI): An auction house has sold various Titanic remnants to mark the centennial of its sinking.

The items offered on the block Sunday at Bonhams include an original ticket to the 1912 launch of the Titanic, a dinner menu from the ill-fated ocean liner, and artifacts recovered from the wreckage miles underwater.

The historic admission ticket fetched 56250 dollars, including the auction house premium. The menu, touting choices like the tongue of a castrated rooster and beef sirloin with horseradish, sold for 31,250 dollars, Fox News reported.

Both went to private American buyers, said Gregg Dietrich, Bonhams' maritime consultant.

He said one surprise at the auction was the comparatively low price paid for a telegraph that read, "We have struck an iceberg."

That message-sold for 27,500 dollars-was sent to Titanic's sister ship, the Olympic, about three hours before the Titanic sank just days into its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York. Only about 700 of the luxury liner's more than 2,200 passengers survived.

One important item that did not sell is a handwritten account from the captain of the Carpathia that rescued the survivors, Dietrich said.

"But interest in Titanic artifacts remains strong," he said, noting that Bonhams' Manhattan auction room was filled Sunday with about 60 people, in addition to bidders on the phone and online.

He said many items went to buyers collecting Titanic artifacts for years.

The most curious lot of the day, Dietrich said, sold for 12,500 dollars: three rivets and a piece of porthole glass recovered from the wreckage in the North Atlantic near Newfoundland during expeditions starting in 1987. (ANI)