Titanic trinkets auctioned on 100th anniversary of tragedy

From a launch ticket to a piece of rug – original trinkets from the Titanic were auctioned off Sunday on the 100th anniversary of the oceanliner's sinking.

Under the hammer: the front page of the April 16, 1912 evening edition of the Boston Globe and the bell used to sound the alarm in the 1958 film A Night to Remember

The sale, entitled "RMS Titanic: 100 years of fact & fiction at Bonhams," included what auctioneers called "an extremely rare original launch ticket with its perforated admission stub still intact." The souvenir sold for $56,250.

A menu from the ship went for $31,250 and a telegram bearing the message "We have struck an iceberg" was sold for $27,500.

On the odder side of souvenirs: a chunk of green rug taken from the ship before it was launched. It sold for $18,000.

While bidders showed a high level of interest, not all items related to the shipwreck recaptured in James Cameron's epic 1997 film "Titanic" were sold.

Unsold was a two-page handwritten description of rescue efforts by the captain of the "Carpathia", which came to the Titanic's aid. Another item that did not sell was a collection of 20 letters from Titanic survivors.

At sea and on land Sunday, people stood in silence to remember the 1,500 people who died in the sinking of the Titanic ocean liner a century ago.

In Belfast, the city that built the Titanic, a memorial garden containing the first-ever monument to list all the victims' names was unveiled during a commemorative service attended by about 300 members of the public.

Earlier, wreaths were thrown into the Atlantic at the site of the wreck from MS Balmoral, a cruise ship that has traced the doomed liner's route across the ocean, while people also held a minute's silence.

And in Halifax, the Canadian port city from where ships sailed to retrieve bodies from the icy Atlantic waters following the sinking on April 15, 1912, 1,000 locals and tourists, some in period costumes, attended a solemn interfaith service at a cemetery where 121 of Titanic's victims are buried.