Auction house: We found Titanic violin
2013-03-15 18:44
London - A British auction house says it has unearthed
the violin played by the bandmaster of the Titanic as the ocean liner sank.
Survivors of the Titanic have said they remember the
band, led by Wallace Hartley, playing on deck even as passengers boarded
lifeboats after the ship hit an iceberg.
Hartley's violin was believed lost in the 1912 disaster,
but auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son say an instrument unearthed in 2006
has undergone rigorous testing and proven to be Hartley's.
The auction house says it spent the past seven years and
thousands of pounds determining the water-stained violin's origins, consulting
numerous experts including government forensic scientists and Oxford
University.
It said on Friday the violin will go on display at Belfast
City Hall, less than a kilometre from where Titanic was built.
- SAPA
