Titanic floats their boat

NEW YORK -- After Christie’s got $119,000 for a Titanic life jacket at an auction in London last year, Gregg Dietrich was not surprised that his phone kept ringing with offers of other items from the ill-fated ship. “When we sell one . . . more seem to come out of the woodwork,” said Dietrich, who heads the maritime (or “ocean liner”) division of the auction house here. “We’re been inundated with Titanic offers.”

The problem was, many of the calls came from people like the man who was certain he had all sorts of valuable Titanic keepsakes: a first-class passenger list, a menu from its Cafe Parisienne, even a passenger ticket that would have been the first ever auctioned.

Except it wasn’t. When the man delivered the ticket, the auctioneer delivered the bad news. “It was a copy of one that’s in the Liverpool museum.” The passenger list? “A high-quality reproduction.”

So when Dietrich got another call, from a lawyer who said he had a client in Canada who had another Titanic life vest, he thought, “Sure . . . give me a call in a couple of centuries.” When they sent him a photo, though, it didn’t look like an obvious fake -- say, one of the life vests made for James Cameron’s “Titanic.” So Dietrich got on a plane to check it out.

And that’s how Christie’s got the centerpiece of its maritime auction this week. There were 250 lots for sale -- from huge ship models and posters to a pair of Royal Holland pickle jars. But most of the attention was on the 10 items from the ocean liner that hit an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage in 1912, including a second-class passenger list, two “Marconi Grams” from and to survivors (“Safe on Carpathia,” one read) . . . and that life vest.

A children’s plaything

For 96 years, it had been in the family of now retired Chrysler worker Dunbar MacQuarrie, whose maternal grandfather, John James Dunbar, was said to have helped recover debris -- and bodies -- on the beaches of Nova Scotia after the Titanic went down. As kids, MacQuarrie and his sister wore it while jumping off hay bales. “It’s true. I played with it,” he recalled last week from his home in Windsor, Ontario.

But after the vest auctioned in London was described as one of half a dozen known to have survived, including one worn by Lady Astor, now owned by the Titanic Historical Society, MacQuarrie gave his to his lawyer, who locked it in a safe.

Auction houses have to be cautious, so Dietrich brought in “Titanic consultants,” who said the cork-filled canvas vest did seem to be from the Titanic and likely had not been taken off a victim, for its straps had not been cut. Still, the catalog mentioned “presence of oil and possibly bloodstains.”

What this vest did not have was great “provenance,” one of the prime words in an auctioneer’s vocabulary. The London one had been worn by the secretary to the wife of Cosmo Duff-Gordon, who was accused of bribing crew members not to return their half-filled rowboat to the sinking ship. Though he was cleared at an inquest, it was hard to match that back story, one reason the Canadian vest was given a lower estimated price, of $60,000 to $80,000.

Plus, as Wednesday’s auction neared, Dietrich sensed there might be only a few avid bidders for the vest -- and more for the second-class passenger list, which carried a $15,000 to $20,000 estimate. The first-class passengers had been the famous ones, but there are more of those lists around, for “more first-class passengers survived,” Dietrich noted. “With the second-class passengers, it was a little bit more of a stampede to get off the ship.”

What’s more, this list had good provenance, having been carried off the ship by the mother of Bertha Watt, who wrote of their harrowing experiences in a school essay, which was part of the auction lot. One person who wanted it was the collector who’d bought a first-class list last year, for $40,000, Christopher H. Lee. “My family thinks I’m crazy,” he said.

Maritime collectors almost invariably say they were born into the hobby. Dietrich speaks of how his admiral grandfather led early Navy convoys in the North Atlantic at the outset of World War II, and how he and his father, a Danish carpenter, built model ships together. New York ocean liner memorabilia dealer Richard C. Farber Jr. mentions his family’s transatlantic voyages and his own, decades ago, on the France. And Lee, 56, the son of an American diplomat, notes that his first trip to the U.S., as a baby, was from Europe on the Queen Mary.

Lee owns “probably” 20 ship models, 40 posters and a life ring from the Andrea Doria, in addition to his Titanic first-class passenger list. He keeps some in his Manhattan office, the rest in his Connecticut home. He also throws theme dinners, such as one duplicating the last supper on the Titanic, and jokes that he has a deal with his wife: “Every buck I invest in this, she can invest three bucks in jewelry.”

Venture capitalist

Lee is the founder of Highstar Capital, a $4.5-billion private equity firm that’s part of the AIG empire -- and which last year bought the huge ports operation that set off a political furor when acquired by Dubai interests. “A lot of people accuse me of buying the business from Dubai because I love ships,” he said. “But as the Godfather would say, ‘That was business. This is personal.’ ”

He was speaking Wednesday evening at Christie’s, near Rockefeller Center. The maritime auction did not get the huge room where they sell Picassos, but one with about 100 seats. The Titanic life vest was on a black mannequin in front, flanked by two ship models. Lee sat on the left aisle with his computer and paddle 802.

The first lot, souvenir spoons from various ships, went for $600, the pickle jars for $200. It was not until lot No. 68, abstract wall panels from the SS Eugenio C, that the bidding got lively. A couple no one knew -- the woman holding paddle 814 -- kept topping other bids before getting the colorful panels for $28,000, triple the estimate.

Moments later, it was time for the Titanic’s second-class list. “It would be nice to have both,” said Lee, who keeps his first-class list in a glass case. But sometimes you’re not destined to win an auction. He once had his eye on a beautiful model of a German ship only to have an auction official confide, “‘You’re not going to buy it.’ I said, ‘Why?’ ‘Because the guy you are bidding against is Bill Gates’ interior designer.’ ”

This night, the woman with paddle 814 clearly had the deepest pocket. Lee kept up with her up to $30,000, then put down his paddle. Some phone bidders carried on, but the woman topped them too, getting the lot for $56,250 with commission.

That was almost as much as she paid for the life vest. After someone bidding over the phone carried her up to $55,000, the auctioneer gave his warning, “all done and selling,” and put down the hammer. She had this Titanic keepsake for $68,500 with the premium.

Lee had not bid on the vest. “I think buying things like that is morbid,” he said. “I had a chance years ago to buy some of the oarlocks from the lifeboats, and frankly I think it’s bad luck. I think having the passenger list is very different than having a bloodstained life jacket. . . . Stuff like that belongs in a museum, not in my house.”

But he purchased half a dozen other lots, including a large model of the Normandie, another ship with a tragic history, having burned and sunk in New York while being refitted for war duty in 1942. “Yes!” Lee said when his $8,500 bid for that went untopped.

Afterward, the couple who had dominated the auction would not identify themselves, nor would Christie’s.

“Who is she?” Lee asked when Dietrich came over to congratulate him on his own new acquisitions.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Is she a decorator?”

“No,” said the auction house ocean liner expert. “She’s decorating her house.”

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paul.lieberman@latimes.com