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Titanic rescue ship's cup sells for £130,000

 This cup presented by Titanic survivor Mrs Molly (Margaret) Brown to the captain of rescue ship Carpathia, was expected to get £50,000 at auction, but was sold for more than £130,000. Picture by Henry Aldridge & Son/PA
 This cup presented by Titanic survivor Mrs Molly (Margaret) Brown to the captain of rescue ship Carpathia, was expected to get £50,000 at auction, but was sold for more than £130,000. Picture by Henry Aldridge & Son/PA  This cup presented by Titanic survivor Mrs Molly (Margaret) Brown to the captain of rescue ship Carpathia, was expected to get £50,000 at auction, but was sold for more than £130,000. Picture by Henry Aldridge & Son/PA

A SILVER cup given to the captain of a rescue ship by a Titanic survivor has been sold at auction for £130,000 while a biscuit has sold for £15,000.

American socilalite (Molly) Margaret Brown gave the item to Sir Arthur Henry Rostron as a thank you a month after being saved from the vessel – which sank in 1912 claiming the lives of around 1,500 people.

The sterling silver loving cup was one of a number of Titanic lots sold by auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire – who also sold a biscuit from the ill-fated ship for £15,000.

The cup was sold to a British collector for more than three times its guide price after a bidding war broke.

Andrew Aldrige said: "This is without doubt one of the most iconic objects relating to the Titanic disaster and carries a truly impeccable provenance.

"At one we point we had eight telephone bidders – including one on board a private jet off the west coast of America.

"The loving cup has now become the third most expensive item to be sold from the Titanic."

Capt Rostron and his crew on the Carpathia rescued 705 Titanic survivors and Brown – who later became known as "the unsinkable Molly Brown" – was on one of the last lifeboats to reach his ship.

The cup she presented to her rescuer bore the dedication: "Presented to Captain A. H. Rostron RD, RNR, Commander of the RMS Carpathia.

"In grateful recognition and appreciation of his heroic and efficient service in the rescue of the survivors of the Titanic on April 15th 1912, and of the generous and sympathetic treatment he accorded us on his ship. From the Survivors of the Titanic."

But it was not only the six-figure cup which set tongues wagging – after a biscuit from the 52,000 ton vessel also made a packet.

The Spillers and Bakers "Pilot" biscuit was part of a survival kit stored and was kept as a souvenir by James Fenwick, a passenger onboard the SS Carpathia.

He put the sweet snack in a Kodak photographic envelope complete with the original note, which stated "Pilot biscuit from Titanic lifeboat April 1912".

Mr Aldridge said: "It is the world's most valuable biscuit.

"It is incredible it survived such a dramatic event – the sinking of the world's largest ocean liner – costing 1,500 lives.

"In terms of precedence, a few years ago a biscuit from one of Shackleton's expeditions sold for about £3,000 and there is a biscuit from the Lusitania in a museum in the Republic of Ireland."

The item was sold alongside the Fenwick archive – a unique photographic history of the rescue of the survivors from the Titanic.

Mr Aldrige added: "The total sale of Titanic memorabilia made a very good six figure sum.

"The prices which were paid prove the eternal fascination with such an historic event."