Titanic ticket sells for £33,000

The ticket belonged to one of the last survivors, Lillian Asplund

One of the last four remaining tickets for the Titanic's doomed maiden voyage has sold at auction for £33,000.

The ticket, sold by Henry Aldridge and Son in Devizes, Wiltshire, was part of a collection belonging to one of the last survivors, Lillian Asplund.

Miss Asplund died on 6 May 2006, aged 99, and left the collection to her second cousin from Massachusetts, US.

A pocket watch that stopped at the exact moment the Titanic sank sold for £31,000.

A unique emigrant forwarding order went for £27,000; two pocket books owned by Miss Asplund's father, Carl, sold for £5,000; a photo of him and his wife Selma, went for £5,000 and his gold wedding ring sold for £3,000.

Expensive to insure

Andrew Aldridge, who runs the family auction business with his father Alan, said: "There were bidders from China, America, Sweden, Ireland and the UK calling in.

"The room itself was so packed we had to fetch more chairs."

The Asplund collection, which had been kept in a shoe box in Miss Asplund's home until after her death, was sold for more than £100,000.

Mr Aldridge added: "The relative who inherited the items did not want to hold on to them because when you're keeping things of that value, and you've got to insure them, it's not cheap."

Miss Asplund was five years old when she boarded the White Star liner with her parents and four siblings in 1912, to emigrate from Sweden to Worcester, Massachusetts.

Miss Asplund, her mother Selma and one of her brothers were saved when they were thrown into one of the last lifeboats, but her father Carl and her other three brothers died.

The auctioneer has been selling items associated with the shipwreck twice a year for about 10 years.