Auctions this week saw strong demand for items relating to the ‘Titanic’ and Michael Collins
“THERE’S NO recession here,” remarked a collector at Mealy’s winter sale of rare books, maps, manuscripts and historical memorabilia in Dublin this week.
Bidders spent over €500,000 during the two-day auction at the D4Berkeley Hotel in Ballsbridge where auctioneer Fonsie Mealy noted that the market was “buoyant”. Some 82 per cent of the almost 1,200 lots sold.
Just months before centenary commemorations to mark its sinking on April 15th, 1912, the Titanicdisaster continues to fascinate and enthral. Among memorabilia in the auction was a poignant photograph of Athlone widow Margaret Rice who perished along with her five young sons. The sepia-tinted photograph made €2,200 – exceeding its estimate of €1,000-€1,500.
According to an eyewitness who survived the disaster, Mrs Rice was last seen sitting in the third-class area of the ship holding her infant son Eugene while her other four boys clutched at her skirt as the ship began to sink. Mrs Rice's body was recovered by a cable-laying ship, the Mackay-Bennett, which assisted in the search for bodies. She was identified through labels on her boots – from Parsons shoe shop in Athlone, and a bottle of pills, from Fleming's chemist, also in the town. She was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Halifax, Newfoundland. Her five sons were not identified among the recovered bodies.
The Belfast-built ship also had a largely forgotten link to Co Laois. The long-since defunct Abbeyleix Carpet Works had supplied some of the carpets for the luxury liner's state rooms. An offcut of the carpeting woven for the Titanicand its sister ship Olympicsold for €1,000 (€700-€1,000).
Items relating to Michael Collins – as always – attracted much interest. A collection of typewritten letters, on Dáil Éireann notepaper signed by Collins as minister for finance in 1920, in one of which he apologised for a “stupid error” by an official, made €14,000 (€14,000-€18,000).
A previously unpublished handwritten letter about Michael Collins after his death by Lady Lavery in London sold for €2,000 (€1,250-€1,750).
A copy of the 1916 Proclamation – one of 40 to 50 copies still in private ownership – made €55,000 (€40,000-€50,000). The fragile sheet of paper had been damaged when it was being removed from a hoarding in Dublin’s North King Street during the Easter Rising and had been professionally restored. The record price for a copy of this document – in excellent condition – was achieved in 2008 when one sold for €360,000.
A copy of the first printing, in 1916, of the ballad The Grand Oul' Dame Britanniaby Seán O'Casey sold for €5,000 (€3,000-€4,000). Mealy's described it as "a very fine copy of this great rarity and the only attested copy to come on the market for several decades".
But the biggest surprise was the €7,000 paid for a batch of documents relating to Lt Col C K Howard-Bury, the Offaly-born aristocrat, explorer and big game hunter who died in 1963. The documents included a notebook from his schooldays at Eton College and a handwritten journal of his travels in India which had an estimate of only €500-€750.
On Monday, in Kells, Co Meath, auctioneer Oliver Usher sold a further selection of rare books and manuscripts owned by the late collector William Battersby of Navan. Interest in the Anglo-Irish landed gentry was evident with the sale of a batch of papers relating to various estates, including Holmpatrick (Skerries, Co Dublin) and Headfort (Co Meath), for €8,300 (€2,000-€3,000). Photograph albums from Lord Farnham’s former estate in Co Cavan made €2,700 (€700-€1,100).
