Titanic Debate

Fellow appraiser Kathi Jablonski forwarded me this interesting article on the fate and ownership rights of the Titanic from the Luxist website. The company which discovered the vessel, RMS Titanic is looking to be more profitable, over and above tours and to sell some of the 5,900 items that have so far been removed from the site in order to recover salvage costs.  According to the Luxist article, the property from the sunken luxury ocean liner could be worth over $100 million.  RMS Titanic is going to court to try to obtain at least partial ownership of the salvaged property. Te U.S. and England have protected the Titanic site and property as an international memorial.

Deidre Woolard of the Luxist reports:

The company RMS Titanic (RMST) has emerged as the owner of the salvage rights. RMST is considering a seventh dive next year, its first since 2004 although other dives, including one financed by "Titanic" director James Cameron, have taken place. RMST has already recovered 5,900 artifacts from the ship during the first six dives. Legally the company does not own the ship nor the recovered items and it has gone to court in pursuit of limited ownership as a way to make up for the huge salvage costs. RMST shareholders would like the company to be more profitable. An agreement between Britain and the U.S. protects the Titanic as an international memorial and protects the site from unauthorized treasure hunters.

RMST would like to be declared the legal owner of the existing Titanic collection in order to recover some of the costs of salvage which have not been covered by revenues from the touring exhibition which has been shown at various museums. If RMST were declared the owner it could also sell the collection to a museum. If it cannot get the rights, RMST has asked a salvage reward of $225 million.

To read the full article, click HERE.