NI museums fight to buy 5,500 treasures raised from Titanic

A TRANSATLANTIC battle is ongoing over the ownership of Titanic treasures worth more than £15m — with wealthy American bidders joining the race.

British museums and US hedge funds are fighting over the 5,500-strong collection, which is being auctioned in Jacksonville, Florida, and includes 15 rings, necklaces and pins dredged from the ocean floor.

It also comprises a golden nugget necklace gifted to ‘the Unsinkable Molly Brown’.

Titanic Belfast, the Titanic Foundation, National Museums Northern Ireland and the National Maritime Museum teamed up to launch a multi-million pound Titanic Artefacts Collection campaign in July.

Together, they hope to repatriate the objects to Belfast, home of the Titanic, and are backed by James Cameron, who directed the most famous film about the disaster, which was released back in 1997.

“One of the concerns is that the collection would be broken

Salvaged treasures: RMS Titanic

up, sold privately,” Mr Cameron said.

“The bankruptcy court might award the company the opportunity to break up the collection, to sell it piecemeal, and it would disappear from the public eye.

“That’s why people who feel some responsibility around Titanic have stepped up.

“If it’s sold privately, that would be wrong. It’s part of the world heritage. It’s an incredible piece of history.”

The rare collection has become available after a US company that currently owns the items, Premier Exhibitions, filed for bankruptcy in America in 2016.

The haul, which a judge ruled must be sold whole, also comprises a blue sapphire surrounded by 14 diamonds, that bears a strong likeness to Princess Diana’s wedding ring, which was later given to Kate Middleton by Prince William.

Other items, recovered during seven excavations of the wreck between 1987 and 2004, offer a reminder of some of the 1,500 lives that were lost when Titanic sank in 1912, according to The Times.

The artefacts were raised from the ocean by RMS Titanic Inc, a privately-owned company that gained exclusive rights to salvage it.

They include a pocket watch which was owned by South African hotel boss Thomas William Solomon Brown, who died after putting his wife and daughter on a lifeboat.

Another surviving relic is a golden necklace owned by Margaret Brown, a socialite dubbed ‘the Unsinkable Molly Brown’. It was a gift from her mine owner husband, JJ Brown.