Thousands Of Artifacts Connected To Nearly 150 Shipwrecks, Including Coal From The Titanic, Will Be Auctioned Today
Thousands of artifacts connected to nearly 150 shipwrecks, including the Titanic, will be auctioned today, November 6th.
The British auction house, Lay’s Auctioneers, is handling the sale of the collection of the Charlestown Shipwreck Treasure Museum in Cornwall, England.
Earlier this year, the museum was put on the market but has not yet found a buyer. Many of the items in its collection will be sold to the highest bidder.
The museum was founded in 1976 by Richard Larn, a diver and shipwreck expert, and his wife, Bridget.
For 22 years, the couple owned and curated the institution. Most recently, it was owned by a businessman named Tim Smit.
The collection boasts more than 1,200 artifacts salvaged from various shipwrecks, and they all tell remarkable stories.
“Many of the objects at Charlestown are much more exciting than they first appear,” wrote Lay’s Auctioneers in a blog post.
“We constantly found that once we started to look closely and learn the historical background, we became entranced by the coin, or weapon, or whatever relic it was, encased in marine concretion that we held in our hands.”
Lay’s Auctioneers is offering up 1.6 ounces of coal salvaged from the well-known Titanic. Before the ship hit the iceberg that led to its demise in April 1912, crew members kept it chugging along by shoveling coal into the boilers.
Marco – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Now, the 112-year-old fuel will be auctioned off to the highest bidder. The coal is broken into several pieces. The largest of them is only about an inch wide.
It is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity confirming it was recovered in 1994. The coal is estimated to sell for between $500 to $800.
Another object included in the sale is a tiny 19th-century musket flint that came from the wreck of the Earl of Abergavenny. The ship was captained by John Wordsworth, who was the brother of the poet William Wordsworth.
The ship went down, taking 260 lives with it, including the captain. Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy were devastated by the loss of their brother.
A coil of tarred rope from the Mary Rose will also be put up for sale. The vessel was built for Henry VIII between 1510 and 1511.
It sank in 1545 while trying to stop French ships from landing on the Isle of Wight. Only around 30 of the hundreds of crew members survived the ordeal.
The Mary Rose was raised from the English Channel in 1982. Larn was one of the people who helped bring the shipwreck to the surface. He was given the piece of rope as a token of thanks and appreciation.
In addition, collectors can bid on pocket watches recovered from the Lusitania, a British ocean liner that sank in 1915 after it was struck by a German torpedo. About 1,195 of the 1,959 passengers and crew members perished in the attack.
One of the most impressive artifacts available for sale is a large, elaborately carved piece of the stern section of the HMS Eagle.
The ship was constructed between 1677 and 1679 in Portsmouth Dockyard. It is incredibly rare for a piece of vessel from this period to be preserved.
Aside from selling the museum’s collection, the auction house will also be offering up items from Larn’s personal archive in a separate sale.
His archive consists of 1,630 books, detailed research records, charts, hundreds of photographs, and a selection of cherished artifacts from his explorations of shipwrecks.
The Charlestown Shipwreck Museum sale will take place on November 6th, 7th, and 8th, while the sale of Larn’s archive will occur on November 5th.
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