Titanic treasures in Port Elgin basement
Canada’s largest private collection of itanic relics
“It’s creepy.”That’s Titanic expert Steve Santini’s frank assessment of the nautical disaster museum in the basement of the Port Elgin home he shares with wife and business partner, Vera Hermanns.“Titanic is the main thrust of the collection but there’s a whole bunch of other ships in there and I’ll even admit it’s creepy to have that many di erent wrecks – it’s really wild,” Santini said in a May 7 telephone interview.
He and Hermanns own Titanic Concepts Incorporated. “It’s been quite the voyage,” Santini said of his work as the owner of rare relics on loan to museums, as a film and TV consultant, artefact authenticator and researcher for international auction houses, and author of Titanic books.
Santini’s fascination with maritime disasters began when he was seven or eight, when on a rainy family holiday, his dad turned on the TV and the one channel available was broadcasting ‘A Night to Remember’ about the RMS Titanic sinking.
“I got caught up in the incredible punch and power – and it was black and white (TV),” Santini said.
“My father wasn’t a learned man but he was a man who wanted to learn, and he used to take me to museums all the time, and I really liked the Maritime Museum at the CNE in Toronto,” Santini said, adding he was about 10 at the time and “ships were really getting in my blood” and fuelled his interest in all-things nautical.
“A few years later (my dad) took me to see the ‘Poseidon Adventure’ – a movie about a luxury ocean liner that gets hit by a tidal wave. So, that really did it, and I was just fascinated with disaster ships,” Santini said.
As a hobby became a way of life, Santini, as owner of Canada’s largest private collection of authentic Titanic disaster relics, became known as Canada’s “Mr. Titanic.”“I authenticate Titanic artifacts for major auction houses. I’ve written two books on the ship, and I was one of the historical consultants on James Cameron’s (Titanic) movie,” he said, adding the movie prop department copied some of their Titanic objects.
The artefacts in their collection – including 200+ Titanic items – are from survivors, victims, and include ocean liner White Star marketing items that were taken o the ship before it sailed by crew as souvenirs .
Items also came from other shipwrecks – some famous some not – including the Edmund Fitzgerald, RMS Empress of Ireland, The Carpathia and RMS Lusitania, to name just a few.
Many items were carved from reclaimed wood from the Titanic, recovered by ships sent from Halifax to retrieve bodies.
“So, we have items from all of Titanic’s story – from her build – we have some tools from the men who built her right up to a 1912 Titanic memorial postcard issued after the sinking,” Santini said, adding that postcard “started me o on a long hunt for artifacts from the ship.”
Hermann’s and Santini’s Titanic Concepts Incorporated has artifacts on display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Museum and Library in California, the National Geographic Museum in Washington D.C.For over 20 years, the couple have had artifacts in the two largest Titanic museums in the world - in Branson, Missouri and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, where Santini said they rebuilt the front end of the Titanic and when you drive into
Branson – the first thing you see is the ship’s funnels.
“It’s not at all a hokey tourist attraction – it is very respectful and authentic.”
Showing their collection in carefully curated display cases during a May 9 visit, Santini pointed to a woman’s pocket watch – frozen at the moment of frigid death and now rusted – as another favourite Titanic relic.
“Items all have stories – the pocket watch is poignant – it was on a person, and it stopped when the person stopped. The water was so cold,” Santini said, adding he also likes a cast bronze White Star flag and plaque that reads “Liverpool”.“These were taken o a Titanic lifeboat that was taken aboard The Carpathia by souvenir hunters – somebody took a screwdriver and just took them o and we ended up acquiring them,” Santini said.
He also likes “human things” like an earthen ware tea pot from the RMS Carpathia – the first ship to come to the rescue of Titanic survivors.
“The Carpathia was torpedoed in WW1 and sank to the bottom. You just know this is one of the things they used to serve hot beverages to the freezing cold 705 people in the (Titanic) lifeboats,” Santini said.
“It’s not just a tea pot anymore. It’s about the humanity of these items, and we just want to honour the people and the ships that are a part of our past. There’s nobility, there’s cowardness and bravery – all these are wrapped up in the items and the stories that need to be told,” he said.
Over the years, Santini has had three Titanic exhibits at the Bruce County Museum & Cultural Centre that raised interest in and money for the facility in Southampton, and said “it would be nice” to do another fundraiser or event locally.
“In a perfect world, the Titanic collection would be a hell of an attraction wherever it was staged – we’re open to ideas,” Santini said.
“People continue to be fascinated and it would be quite a thing for Port Elgin to have a Titanic and maritime disaster museum on Lake Huron. We want to share it because if you don’t, you’re just a hoarder.”