At auction, a Titanic life jacket fetches £670,000.

 

A life jacket worn by Titanic survivor Laura Mabel Francatelli is the only one of its kind to ever to be sold at auction(Image: BNPS)

A life jacket worn by a Titanic survivor has been sold at auction to a collector for £670,000.

 It is the only life jacket from the Titanic to be sold at auction in the 114 years since the ship sank, going under the hammer at Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire.

 Laura Mabel Francatelli, a first-class passenger who was one of about 700 survivors of the 1912 tragedy, donned the vest before boarding a lifeboat. Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said he was "ecstatic".  He added: "It reflects the ongoing interest and passion for the story of the Titanic, and its passengers and crew."

 He previously stated that the vest was "the only lifejacket from a survivor to emerge at auction in 114 years, so it is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for collectors." He stated that the vest was the only one. Francatelli and fellow survivors had signed the floation device, which features 12 pockets and is fitted with shoulder rests and side straps.

 The jacket was originally expected to fetch between £250,000 and £350,000, but it ended up going for hundreds of thousands of pounds more than that.

At the same auction, a seat cushion from one of the Titanic's lifeboats was sold for $390,000. The friend of London tea importer Richard William Smith, who perished aboard the ship when it collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic in 1912, purchased the cushion in the beginning.

The cushion from one of the Titanic's lifeboats sold for £390,000(Image: Henry Aldridge & son )

Smith, who was on his way to meet fellow tea importer TG Matthews in Brooklyn, New York, was among the 1,500 who died in the disaster, although his body was never identified.

 The auctioneer stated that the Titanic Museum Attraction in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Branson, Missouri, was the buyer, and the seat will be displayed. On April 14, Southampton held a memorial to commemorate the 114th anniversary of the RMS Titanic tragedy.

Source: BBC