Leather case for violin used on the Titanic to reassure passengers as the ship ... trends now
A leather case that protected the violin played by the bandmaster on the Titanic as the ship sank is tipped to sell for £120,000 at auction.
Wallace Hartley and his orchestral band famously played on to reassure the passengers as the 1912 disaster unfolded around them.
Wallace went down with the ship but not before he put his wooden violin back in its valise bag which he strapped to himself - possibly for buoyancy - using the long handles.
Days after the sinking in which 1,522 people died, Wallace's drowned body was recovered with the bag still attached to him.
A leather case that protected the violin played by the bandmaster on the Titanic as the ship sank is tipped to sell for £120,000 at auction
Wallace Hartley and his orchestral band famously played on to reassure the passengers as the 1912 disaster unfolded around them. Pictured: a rare order of service for Wallace's funeral that was held on May 18, 1912, at Colne cemetery
Days after the Titanic sinking in which 1,522 people died, Wallace's drowned body was recovered with the bag still attached to him
The violin was sold at auction for a world record price of £1.1m after forensic tests and CT scans confirmed it was the one played on the Titanic 101 years before
The violin and the case were later returned to Wallace's fiancee, Maria Robinson, back home in Colne, Lancs.
After she died in 1939 the items were donated to the Bridlington Salvation Army band.
One of its members was a music teacher and they gifted the violin to one of their pupils in the 1940s.
Years later it was inherited by her son who sold it at auction for a world record price of £1.1m after forensic tests and CT scans confirmed it was the one played on the Titanic 101 years before.
The instrument
