Maritime objects and items with a maritime theme can prove popular with collectors. However, it is often the provenance of maritime items which otherwise lack any intrinsic worth which makes them highly sought after by collectors.
For instance, the highlight of the Titanic section of a maritime auction to take place at Christie's in London next month is expected to be an "important first-class passenger menu" from the Royal Mail Ship Titanic Cafe Parisien. What renders value to this otherwise unremarkable object is that it survived that great maritime tragedy, the sinking of the Titanic. It did so, apparently, in the pocket of one Mr Adolphe Saalfeld, a passenger travelling first class who succeeded in donning a life jacket and climbing into a lifeboat, doubtless an easier task for him than for his unfortunate fellow humans locked in steerage.
The menu was subsequently preserved on the walls of Mr Saalfeld's company, Saalfeld & Co Ltd, Manchester, before being presented to a long-serving employee.
"Very few menus survive from the actual night of the disaster; fewer still are First Class," says Christie's. Of the known surviving examples "neither is from the Cafe Parisien" which makes this otherwise instantly disposable piece of paper, albeit "elaborately printed", unique; and, more to the point, valuable. Mr Saalfeld's little menu is expected to fetch £8,000 (€11,876) to £12,000 sterling. Indeed, Christie's South Kensington sold a pair of pre-maiden voyage menu cards last November for £19,550 sterling.
A hand-written luncheon crew menu from the Titanic is also in the forthcoming auction, revealing a fare of Petite Maritime, Porter House Steak and Tapioca Pudding or Stewed Rhubarb and Custard for dessert. Embossed at the top with the White Star pennant and at the bottom with the cipher for the Ocean Steam Navigation Co beneath the vessel's name, it is expected to fetch between £2,000 and £3,000 sterling.
Other Titanic items include a run of Titanic Electric and Turkish bath tickets, which are expected to fetch £1,000 to £1,500. A note at the top of the tickets reads: "A little memo for you. Do not let out of your possession H.W.B."
Christie's don't know who H.W.B. was but they believe a possible contender could be Henry Blank, a passenger in first class, who was the only passenger saved with these initials.
The ship's bell from the "humble cable-layer Mackey-Bennett", 1884, is expected to fetch £3,000 to £5,000. The White Star Line's Halifax agents commissioned this vessel to make a thorough search of the area where the Titanic sank to recover any bodies. Tons of ice were emptied into the ship's cable tanks, and embalmers' tools, supplies and more than a hundred plain coffins were loaded aboard the vessel. The ship sailed out on its macabre voyage on April 17th, 1912, 87 years ago tomorrow. The Mackey-Bennett found 306 bodies, of which 116 were buried at sea due to their state of decomposition, says Christie's.
Other ships' bells in the forthcoming auction include the bell from H.M.S. Rodney which attacked the German Bismarck in 1941 and the ship's bell from H.M.S. Anson of the Napoleonic era. The Anson bell is expected to fetch between £3,000 and £5,000, while the Rodney bell is estimated at £1,500 to £1,800.
Models can also attract high prices. A fine 1:100 scale builder's model of the "pocket-battleship" Deutschland is expected to fetch between £70,000 and £80,000. The so-called "pocket-battleship" was conceived in Weimar Germany as a method of circumventing the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, 1919, whereby the defeated Reich was forbidden to build warships except for coastal defence, says Christie's.
