My most treasured Titanic item?
Memories- of working with the Big Piece every day at the Titanic exhibit in Boston in 1998, when it still had black paint and smelled of the deep ocean....I sprayed it with a hose every day, and went home nightly stained from head to toe with Titanic rust..Opening the portholes was a thrill...
As for somthing in my collection, my rarest item is a piece of ornate wood from the aft grand staircase....
After the sinking, ships such as the Minia and Mackay Bennett that were dispatched to recover bodies also recovered quite a bit of wreckwood- one Minia crewmember named Mr Parker fashioned a section of ornate trim from one of the bannisters into a picture frame- i have one of the 'corner triangles' I bought from a private collector a few years ago- It is stunning to know it was there, dead center when titanic sank...
(some other sections of wood from that frame were sold at the Guernseys Titanic auction in NYC a few years ago)
I also have a very small piece of one of the lifejackets, which I glued to the inside of my Thayer book...
I'm very proud of my Titanic book collection- I have first edition Gracie, Young, Walker, Bullock, Beesley,
Lightoller and Thayer books, as well as the original 1912 US Seanate Titanic Hearings book and the 1911
Olympic/Titanic Shipbuilders book...
Someone mentioned a vial of titanic rust- I was the staff coordinator and historian on site at the Titanic exhibit in St Paul in 1999, and we put Big Piece and mooring bitts rust into about 1000 glass vials and gave them to our 800 plus volunteers at the volunteer appreciation party. Most volunteers kept thier rust vials, but others gave them away to visitors...
I used to have dozens of extra rust vials, but gave all but one vial away- so my one remaining vial of Titanic rust from st Paul is a treasured possesion..
As for
Olympic, Ray Cowell made me a chessboard fasioned from bits of wood from Olympic's grand staircase, and its a stunning piece...
regards
Tarn Stephanos
Boston MA