Rare Titanic launch ticket could fetch £50,000 at auction
A unique day ticket to view the ill-fated Titanic on the day of its departure from Southampton is expected to fetch up to £50,000 at auction.
The ticket allowed the mother of second class passenger to watch the departure of the liner.
The card bears the White Star burgee and is addressed to the officer in charge.
It states: “Please allow Mr Talbot and 2 friends to view the S.S. Titanic.”
It is stamped “second-class” and is dated April 10 1912.
A handwritten note on the reverse says: “Mrs Dibden plus two sisters.”
It was carried onto the Titanic by Eliza Dibden, the mother of 18-year-old William Dibden, from the New Forest, Hampshire, who perished in the disaster.
Accompanying the ticket is her son’s first communion certificate dated Easter 1908.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge, of Henry Aldridge and Son Ltd, said: “This is the only card of its type we have seen in 25 years and one of the rarest items of Titanic ephemera to be offered in recent years. This is the only ticket of this type that has ever been offered for auction.”
The Titanic departed on its maiden voyage on April 10 1912 and sank in the early hours of April 15 – with the loss of around 1,500 lives.
Mr Dibden boarded the Titanic at Southampton with his cousin Ambrose Hood, Charles Davies, Percy Deacon, Leonard Hickman, Lewis Hickman and Stanley Hickman. He died in the disaster and if his body was recovered it was never identified.
Mr Dibden is remembered on his parents’ headstone in St Peter’s Church, Bramshaw.
The lot is due to go under the hammer in Devizes, Wiltshire, on November 21.