Emily Chan
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.
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