# Own a Piece of the Titanic **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 4, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775 "2009-01-04T03:08:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/1 "2009-01-04T03:08:41Z")
[More specifically, a watch made from pieces of the _Titanic_.](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-473191/Watches-Titanics-hull-on-sale-75-000.html) > [@](#): > > Watches made from what must be one of the rarest materials on Earth - metal from the hull of the Titanic - are going on sale for up to £75,000. > > Salvaged by divers from the wreck of the liner - which lies 12,500ft under the North Atlantic where it sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912 with the loss of 1,500 lives - the metal has been blended with modern shipbuilding steel to make the casing of the timepieces. > > Coal which was to have been burned in the Titanic’s furnaces and which was also recovered from the seabed has been mixed with ceramics to create black dials for the watches. I’m not really sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it is pretty neat to be able to have a watch made from one of the most famous ships in history, on the other, its basically made from materials looted from a grave. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/2 "2009-01-04T03:23:29Z")
Oh hell… I was all excited until the last four words of your post… Yeah. Epic fail. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/3 "2009-01-04T03:28:36Z")
My interest immediately waned at: > [@](#): > > £75,000 ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/4 "2009-01-04T03:37:25Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#): > > Oh hell… I was all excited until the last four words of your post… > > Yeah. Epic fail. Yabut, its not like the dead will care, or that the ship would otherwise remain pristine if people didn’t take stuff from the wreck. Its slowly dissolving into rust, and since it doesn’t look like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett is going to be ponying up the money to raise the ship and put the wreck in a museum(s), preserving portions of it in this way, ain’t necessarily a bad thing. (Though, admittedly kind of squicky.) > [@Washoe](#): > > My interest immediately waned at: Hey, they’ve got “bargain” models starting at a mere £4,500! ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/5 "2009-01-04T04:10:03Z")
What do I get—an actual lump of the fucking coal? No thanks, Santa already stuffed one of those in my sock just last week or thereabouts. ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_From\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Girl\_From\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_From_Mars)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/6 "2009-01-04T04:13:41Z")
It horrifies me - yes, it’s slowly rusting away, but we have excellent photographic records, and remodeling it into watches hardly preserves it for posterity. It’s a grave site, and should be respected as such. To place this in context, how comfortable would anyone be should someone start selling pieces of the Arizona to be worn on the wrist? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/7 "2009-01-04T04:22:12Z")
> [@Girl\_From\_Mars](#): > > It horrifies me - yes, it’s slowly rusting away, but we have excellent photographic records, and remodeling it into watches hardly preserves it for posterity. It’s a grave site, and should be respected as such. To place this in context, how comfortable would anyone be should someone start selling pieces of the Arizona to be worn on the wrist? Actually, a better example would be folks wearing parts of the Hindenberg, since, like the Titanic, the people killed died in an accident and not in an act of war. Humans do, however, have a long tradition of turning items from a tragedy into souvenirs, and this doesn’t strike me as nearly as creepy as the folks who go around carrying the body parts of other people as “holy relics.” ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/8 "2009-01-04T04:38:27Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > on the other, its basically made from materials looted from a grave. That would be how I would perceive it. I would hate that gift and wouldn’t know what to do with it. Maybe I’d throw it in the sea (seriously). ETA : I mistakenly believed it was the OP’s Christmas gift, for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/9 "2009-01-04T05:33:35Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Actually, a better example would be folks wearing parts of the Hindenberg, since, like the Titanic, the people killed died in an accident and not in an act of war. I would have no problem wearing a watch made from metal from the Hindenberg. It is, after all, not a gravesite. But the Titanic…that’s a little different. I think **Girl From Mars** hit it dead on. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/10 "2009-01-04T05:42:58Z")
It sounds to me like they have modified the peices so much that having been part of the Titanic isn’t in anyway relevent. They “blended” peices of the hull with “modern shipbuilding steel”. So how much of these watch cases is actually from the Titanic and how much is “modern shipbuilding steel”, and is there any real way to tell that any of it is? It’s like having a 1909 double die lincoln penny\* and melting it down and into a completely worthless modern penny. The only value left is the material, and that’s not worth much at all. - I have no idea if such a thing exists or is collectible. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/11 "2009-01-04T06:00:02Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > It sounds to me like they have modified the peices so much that having been part of the Titanic isn’t in anyway relevent. They “blended” peices of the hull with “modern shipbuilding steel”. So how much of these watch cases is actually from the Titanic and how much is “modern shipbuilding steel”, and is there any real way to tell that any of it is? It’s like having a 1909 double die lincoln penny\* and melting it down and into a completely worthless modern penny. The only value left is the material, and that’s not worth much at all. > > - I have no idea if such a thing exists or is collectible. Once its melted down, there’s no way to tell. There _were_ people claiming to sell items made from the WTC for a while, they quickly got shutdown as I recall as they couldn’t _prove_ that any of the material actually came from the WTC, and I think there might have been some questions of legality about selling it, even if it _had_ come from the WTC. The _Titanic_ is a bit of a squirrely issue, as its a gravesite (though the bodies appear to have all been eaten by now) and there’s some kind of maritime law which allows governments to claim anything extracted from old wrecks (there’s some issue between salvage divers and Spain going on right now, with Spain claiming that even though the treasure was extracted from a ship that sank in international waters [or in a part of the world no longer controlled by Spain] in the 1700s, the contents of the ship still belong to them). Presumably this could be enacted here (IANAML) to stop the sale of these watches (assuming that they _are_ made of materials extracted from the _Titanic_ and not fraudulent). ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/12 "2009-01-04T06:25:20Z")
I have a lump of coal from Titanic and I’ve actaully handled some of the artifacts. (dishes mostly) That is pretty cool. There is a lot of stuff in museums that has been 'looted from a gravesite" that I enjoy seeing. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/13 "2009-01-04T10:04:20Z")
In my native country, roughly 95 % of prehistoric museum items come from “looted graves”. Were it not for graves to dig open, there’d be huge white areas in the already murky prehistory of many regions in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_From\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Girl\_From\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_From_Mars)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/14 "2009-01-04T10:11:14Z")
> [@Toxylon](#): > > In my native country, roughly 95 % of prehistoric museum items come from “looted graves”. Were it not for graves to dig open, there’d be huge white areas in the already murky prehistory of many regions in the world. And I think it can be valid, once time has passed, or where there is a significant gap in our knowledge when the exploration and recovery is done for academic interest, and with care taken not to destroy more than is needed (such as small sections of mummy bones to help with DNA analysis). The recovery of artifacts from the Titanic has destroyed sections of the already fragile ship, and in this case is being taken pure and simple to make money off of a fairly recent tragedy. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/15 "2009-01-04T13:28:12Z")
O wouldn’t buy the watch, but I sure wouldn’t freak out from handling it. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/16 "2009-01-04T19:48:54Z")
> [@Toxylon](#): > > In my native country, roughly 95 % of prehistoric museum items come from “looted graves”. Were it not for graves to dig open, there’d be huge white areas in the already murky prehistory of many regions in the world. Museum = good, hopefully. Personal jewelry = bad. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/17 "2009-01-04T20:56:45Z")
I think it’s sort of the difference between going to see the mummies in the British Museum, which is amazing, and those mummy unwrapping parties rich Victorians used to throw for their friends, which is revolting. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/18 "2009-01-04T20:58:29Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I think it’s sort of the difference between going to see the mummies in the British Museum, which is amazing, and those mummy unwrapping parties rich Victorians used to throw for their friends, which is revolting. Or worse, using mummys for _fuel_ in locomotives, which apparently was done at one time. ---
**Author:** ![fisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@fisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fisha)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/19 "2009-01-04T21:22:52Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I think it’s sort of the difference between going to see the mummies in the British Museum, which is amazing, and those mummy unwrapping parties rich Victorians used to throw for their friends, which is revolting. I completely agree with this sentiment, but I don’t know why. Because at it’s heart, it is completely illogical. It’s wrong for someone to pay to exploit the dead for their personal amusement, and to impress and horrify their friends. Got it. It’s ok for a museum to pay to exploit the dead, to build vast buildings and displays to impress and horrify crowds of people that aren’t well off enough to buy their own personal mummies. And most museums charge for it. Got it. Oh wait, is it just a matter of scale? ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775/20 "2009-01-04T23:21:09Z")
> [@fisha](#): > > Oh wait, is it just a matter of scale? No—it’s that one serves a valid educational purpose, and the other doesn’t. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/own-a-piece-of-the-titanic/479775.md?page=2)