A piece of ephemera that was recovered from the Titanic shipwreck is going up for sale in Maryland later this month.
The paper slip from the ship's post office miraculously survived the 1912 disaster. Alex Cooper Auctioneers, the auction house that is selling the item, estimates that it could sell for as low as $5,000, or as high as $8,000.
"Ephemera" refers to any memorabilia that was intended for short-term usage. This includes postcards, ticket stubs and newspapers.
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The auction-house says that the piece is one of very few paper slips that survived the shipwreck.
"We think this is a particularly exciting piece of memorabilia," Richard Hall, Specialist of Rare Books & Ephemera at Alex Cooper Auctioneers, told Fox Business. "It is extremely rare."
"There were only a few of these slips recovered, and virtually all of the rest of the mail aboard ship was lost."
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The reason that the document survived was because it was sealed in the pocket of an employee on the ocean liner. The slip was being carried by Oscar S. Woody, a postal clerk.
"The piece also tells a great story about the Titanic and its operation, and about the tragedy of the wreck," Hall explained.
According to Alex Cooper Auctioneers, Woody was celebrating his 44th birthday when the ship crashed into an iceberg.
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"[Mail workers] immediately began to haul the mail to the main deck to get it aboard the lifeboats," the auction house's website reads. "In the end, none of the mail was saved, and all of the clerks perished."
"Woody's body was recovered several days later, with a number of these facing slips in his pockets."
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The document will go up for sale at a live auction on January 27. Interested bidders can register for the event on Alex Cooper's website.
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