CIGARETTE BOX ECHOES SCOTT’S TRAGIC JOURNEY

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Silver cigarette box sold for £5,200. esbits Auctions, in the seafaring city of Portsmouth, has sold an Edwardian silver cigarette box of topdrawer exploration interest.

The oblong box had a domed hinged engraved with the official crest of a penguin and “Discovery Antarctic Expedition 1901, AB ARMITAGE/IN REMEMBRANCE 1901-04”. It was further engraved with Captain Scott’s facsimile signature.

The box had London hallmarks for 1902, the maker’s mark of John Evans and retailer’s name of Dobson of Piccadilly.

Between 1894 and 1897, Royal Navy reservist Albert Armitage served under Nansen on the Jackson Harmsworth Expedition to Franz Josef Land and, in 1900, he was appointed second-in-command and navigator under Captain Scott for the Discovery Expedition of 1901-1904.

Unlike Scott, Lt Armitage had navigational experience in pack ice and knowledge of polar conditions. Although he penetrated furthest into the Polar Plateau, Armitage felt underused on the expedition. He was not selected for the southern journey and it may have been that he received some of the blame for RRS Discovery being beset in Mcmurdo Sound, delaying her departure by a year and requiring a relief expedition to free her (courtesy of another two Dundee ships, Morning and Terra Nova, and a case of explosives).

It is well-documented that Armitage was paid off following the expedition and, in 1905, a row ensued with Scott’s publisher over his book, Two Years in the Antarctic, which was released before the official narrative by Scott, The Voyage of The Discovery.

Subsequent to the expedition, Albert Armitage and RF Scott met only once, and it is quite possible that this engraved box was meant as both a peace offering and a parting gift.

It sold to the London trade for £5,200.