A silver brandy flask recovered from the Titanic has sold for thousands at auction.
The flask fetched £76,000 when it went under the hammer in Wiltshire.
It was given to a first-class passenger onboard shortly before he drowned.
Helen Churchill Candee brought the flask, engraved with her family’s motto “Faithful but Unfortunate”, on board the liner.
As the ship was sinking, she handed her family heirloom to friend and fellow first-class passenger Edward Kent.
Mr Kent was one of more than 1,500 passengers and crew who died when the Titanic struck an iceberg in the early hours of April 15, 1912.
The flask was one of the items rescued and it was sent back to his wife.
Mrs Churchill Candee survived the sinking of the Titanic and the flask was eventually returned to her, along with a letter of explanation.
Both the flask and letter have been on show at the world’s largest Titanic museum, located in the United States, since January.
The damage on it illustrates graphically the horrendous pressure involved when the ship sunk and certainly points to it being submerged at a fairly significant depth. It is a completely unique object with an incredible provenance which enables us to track its history back to April 15th 1912.”
