Battle over Titanic artifacts intensifies as museums launch campaign to bring items 'home'

USA TODAY

A group of museums launched a $19.2 million bid Tuesday in a move they say could keep 5,500 artifacts salvaged from the Titanic from being sold to the highest bidder.

The bid, which is backed by Titanic director James Cameron, and Oceanographer Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck, would allow the Royal Museums Greenwich, National Museums Northern Ireland, Titanic Belfast and Titanic Foundation Limited, to absorb the artifacts into their collections. The campaign's goal is to raise $19.2 million through private and public funding to procure the artifacts from the private company RMS Titanic Inc., which along with its owner, Premier Exhibitions, filed for bankruptcy in 2016.

"Due to the bankruptcy of the company that owns the artifacts, we have a limited opportunity to preserve this significant lasting legacy of the Titanic," Conal Harvey, deputy chairman of Titanic Belfast, said during a press conference Tuesday. "...the alternative is that they will go to somewhere like China – and this opportunity will be lost forever if we do not act now.”

Shortly after Ballard, who is also a National Geographic Explorer-at-Large discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, RMS Titanic Inc., secured the exclusive rights to salvage the wreck. A piece of Titanic's hull along with a cherub statue from the grand staircase, suitcases, and thousands of other items were among the artifacts recovered from the Titanic during seven expeditions between 1987 and 2004.

At the time, Ballard worked tirelessly to ensure the items were not taken from the wreck site, but his and others efforts were unsuccessful.

"This is important: You do not go to Gettysburg with a shovel, and you do not take belt buckles off the Arizona … I tried all I could to block the salvagers, but I couldn’t so the deed is done, but not finished," he said. "It is so important that the final chapter of Titanic’s maiden voyage is for her to come home. So let’s do it."

National Geographic pledged $500,000 to the campaign, which begins a day before the museums and other bidders have a hearing in U.S. bankruptcy court over the fate of Titanic's artifacts. According to National Geographic, the hearing is only the beginning of what will likely be a months-long process to decide who will obtain the artifacts.

If the bid is successful, the majority of the artifacts would be on display at Titanic Belfast, steps away from where the RMS Titanic was built.

"We are now in a journey to bring the artifacts home, and bring them into public ownership in perpetuity," Harvey said.

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