Tile from Smoking Room

[Deborah Russes]

I was just cruising around the net and found a place selling tiles from the smoking room. They are framed with a pic of the room. Don't know if they are from the ship itself or perhaps left over pieces that weren't used. They are over $700.00!!! Yikes! They are kind of a mustard color with a green leaf with four rounded ends.

 

[Parks Stephenson]

Deborah,

Well, they weren't from or intended for Titanic's Smoking Room. Her tiles, visible at the wreck site, are blue and red. Olympic's were yellowish and white. That particular tile pattern went into numerous H&W-built ships, so the tiles that H&W found in their old office spaces one day and decided to sell as "Titanic" Smoking Room tiles could have been overrun on any number of production orders, not even necessarily Olympic's.

The tile is the correct pattern, but not the correct colour, for Titanic. Now, the best tie-in one can surmise is that the same tile used in Olympic could have been ordered for Titanic, but that someone changed the colour requirement after the tiles were produced. There's no evidence of this, though...it's just supposition on my part. I don't even believe that's what happened. Instead, I think that a bunch of tiles were made for some ship (which will forever remain unknown) and those that weren't used for the ship were laid down in some H&W administrative offices (which is quite sensible). Then along comes the wildly popular film, "Titanic," and somebody sees profit in those old tiles (a friend related a story where he was touring the shipyard either just before or right after the film's release, and happened across a stack of these old tiles in a storage area. When asked if he could take one as a souvenir, he was invited to take as many he liked), especially since they could ask about a 1500% markup (originally...looks like it's gone up since then). I see no need to invest in this item, even if it is a genuine tile from the period. Especially at those prices.

Parks

 

[Deborah Russes]

I have to go see what the URL is so you guys can see this. I even thought that maybe several tile colors were made and presented to the line so as to have a choice. maybe what I saw was never used on any ship...they could have been part of a "tile catalog". It was just interesting to see the different things that pop up on line when any film becomes popular.

I would never in a million years pay $700 for a tile.