Rare piece of the Titanic to leave Northern Ireland for first time as Belfast family sells heirloom at auction

The piece comes up for sale just days after the 113rd anniversary of the sinking of the ocean liner was marked with a solemn ceremony in Belfast, proving just how large the story of the Titanic still looms in the province’s collective cultural mind.

The unusual item now up for sale was originally considered scrap metal from the construction of the liner in Harland and Wolff shipyards, but was turned into a decorative heirloom by enterprising workers in the aftermath of the maritime disaster.

As explained by antiques expert and BBC presenter David Harper, it was a divot – a piece of steel originally plugged into hull plates, which are pressed out to make holes that rivets are pounded into.

Examining the piece on his YouTube channel, David Harper's New World of Antiques, the Bargain Hunt star revealed: “When the Titanic went down, workers in the yards picked up these scrap pieces of divots forming the original part of the hull of the Titanic and engraved them, either for themselves as mementos or to sell on to tourists.

"Engraved by a worker at the Harland and Wolff shipyard – a very skilled worker, by the way – it looks like something you might be tempted to call trench art, but of course it was made before the term trench art from the First World War was coined.”

The nickel-plated item is decorated with shamrocks around its sides, plus the logo of Titanic owners the White Star Line on its top.

"It just makes it so appealing – what a thing,” said David, adding that the shamrock engravings represent both St Patrick and, in their three petals, it the Holy Trinity.

Estimating that it should fetch between £800 and £1,200 at auction, he said: “It all depends on how the market is feeling at the time. It’s going to make more, it’s got to make more, but you’ve got to put some sort of starting figure on it.”

Owner Craig Hogg from Belfast stated the heirloom was originally given to his grandmother in either the 1940s or 1950s, by a lady she worked for in Augher, Co Tyrone.

In 2002, his family loaned it to an exhibition marking 90 years since the Titanic was built. When they picked it up, they found the exhibition had created a presentation box for the divot in thanks, marked with an image of the ocean liner.

“It all adds to its provenance,” said David. “It would be interesting to know where it ends up.”

The decorated divot is be sold by Elstob Auctioneers, based in Ripon, North Yorkshire.

It’s not the only piece of Titanic memorabilia to hit the sale floor, however, as a special auction dedicated to the White Star Line takes place in Wiltshire this month.

That will see a pocket watch found among the belongings of a passenger who died when the Titanic sank sold, alongside a letter from high-profile survivor Col Archibald Gracie, a first-class passenger who went on write a book about his experience.