A life jacket worn by a survivor of the Titanicdisaster is expected to fetch over €100,000 when it goes under the hammer today.
The life preserver, worn by Laura Mabel Francatelli and signed by some of the 10 men and two women on board her lifeboat, is up for auction at Christie's in London as part of its maritime sale today.
The life jacket is one of several items in the sale with links to the infamous sinking of the luxury liner in 1912 in which some 1,500 people died.
Francatelli was on board the ship, which sank after it hit an iceberg on April 15, as secretary to dress designer Lady Duff-Gordon.
The sale includes a copy of a letter Francatelli wrote just days after she was rescued, describing how she and Lady Duff Gordon refused to get into the life boats without her employer's husband Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, and were eventually allowed to go with him on a small emergency row boat.
The lifeboat she was on sparked one of the biggest controversies of the tragedy, which only around 700 people survived, when it failed to return to the wreck site despite being more than half empty.
PA