Titanic Violin Heading To Auction

One of the violins used on the Titanic will be heading to auction in April.

Experts believe that the Titanic violin belonged to Wallace Hartley. If the instrument is authentic, it could sell for a record price on April 20 when it is auctioned off by the company Henry Aldrige and Son from Devizes, Wiltshire.

A source connected to the sale said:

“It is the most iconic and important item ever connected to the Titanic to come up for sale. We are talking about high six figures. There will be worldwide interest.”

According to the Daily Mail, the violin has past all of its authentication tests over the last seven years but one. The results of the final test are expected in early March.

The instrument hasn’t been officially authenticated yet, but the anonymous seller believes that they know how the violin made it off of the doomed ship. The seller claims that Maria Robinson, Hartley’s fiance, retrieved the violin from the water after Hartley’s death.

Hartley’s body was pulled from the water by a search crew. IBN Live reports that the violin was strapped to Hartley’s chest when he was pulled from the water but that the instrument never made it to the Office of the Provincial Secretary in Nova Scotia. Titanic scholars have been curious about the whereabouts of the violin, and, now, if the instrument is authenticated, they may finally know the story: Maria Robinson took the violin as a token to remember her fiance.

If the Titanic violin is real, auctioneers believe that it will exceed the record $340,000 paid for a plan of the Titanic.