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Today in Titanic History - with Searching
Today in
Titanic History

Wednesday, April 15, 2026
1912 - 12:00 AM: Shipbuilder Thomas Andrews was on the bridge and he and Smith took a fast tour of the ship's forward area. They were back on the bridge in 10 minutes.

1912 - 12:10 AM: Captain E. J. Smith asked how long until the ship was submerged and Shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, after some fast calculations, told him, "An hour and a half. Possibly two. Not much longer." Smith ordered the boats uncovered.

1912 - 12:15 AM: Captain Smith walked into the wireless room and tells Phillips to send the call for assistance. He handed him the paper with the position of the ship and returned to the bridge. The order had been given to get the passengers up and into lifebelts. Many, still confused as to why they had been awakened, lined up at the purser's office to get their valuables. Most were still unaware of the urgency and made no preparations to leave the ship.

1912 - 12:25 AM: The order had been passed to load the boats.

1912 - 12:40 AM: Boat number 7 was the first to be lowered with 27 people in a boat designed for 65. The boat rowed away from the ship and its passengers sat for the next 90 minutes watching Titanic sink.

1912 - 12:55 AM: Lifeboat 6 portside was lowered. Margaret Brown was picked up and dropped into the descending boat. The passengers noticed there was only one man present and called for more to aid in rowing. Major Arthur Peuchen was allowed by Lightoller to slide down the falls, the only man Lightoller let into a lifeboat. Boat 6 contained 28 passengers, even though it was made for 65.

1912 - 1:00 AM: Lifeboat 3 was launched from the starboard side with 50 people aboard. Minutes later another lifeboat of the same size, Lifeboat 1, was lowered containing only 12 people. All were designed to hold 65.

1912 - 1:40 AM: Most of the boats forward have gone. Collapsible C has been put in the davits in place of the now departed number 1 and Chief Officer Wilde calls for woman and children, no one responds. wasmay and first class passenger Billy Carter (the owner of the Renault in forward hold #2) get into the boat and it was lowered. By now the lwast was pronounced enough that the boat has to be pushed away from the hull so the rivets will not tear the canvas that makes up it's sides.

1912 - 1:55 AM: Lightoller returned to load boat 4 through the windows of the promenade deck. Again a boat was lowered with too few seamen and Quartermaster Perkins slides down the falls to help. Seven more men were pulled from the water, two die of exposure.

1912 - 2:05 AM: Captain Smith went to the wireless room and released the operators from their duty. Phillips started to gather their papers while Bride kept working the key. Smith returned to his bridge to await his fate.

1912 - 2:10 AM: Collapsible B was washed from the deck while the seamen were attempting to attach the davits. The men working on it including Lightoller found themselves in the water. The boat floated away upside down.

1912 - 2:20 AM: Titanic was completely submerged.

1912 - 3:30 AM: The Titanic survivors adrift in the lifeboats, first saw Carpathia's Rockets.

1912 - 4:10 AM: Carpathia arrived at the site of the sinking, and began to take on survivors. Lifeboat 2 was the first to be picked up.

1912 - 8:10 AM: Lifeboat 12, the last one afloat, was picked up by the Carpathia.

1912 - 8:30 AM: The Californian arrived at the site.

1912 - 8:50 AM: Carpathia left the site for New York, leaving the Californian to pick up the bodies.

1875 - 1st class passenger Mr Edward Pomeroy Colley was born in County Kildare, Ireland.

1914 - 2nd class survivor Mrs Elizabeth "Eliza" Hocking died in a road traffic accident at the age of 56.

1939 - 2nd class survivor Mrs Elizabeth Anne Mellinger and her daughter, Madeleine Violet Mellinger, together with Emma Bliss and Samuel John Collins met for a Titanic reunion dinner at the Royal York Hotel, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

1975 - 3rd class survivor Master Meier Moor died of natural causes at the age of 70. It was the 63rd anniversary of the sinking.

1961 - 3rd class survivor Miss Bertha Bridget Moran died of natural causes in Michigan, USA at the age of 77. It was the 49th anniversary of the sinking.

1898 - 3rd class survivor Miss Jamila ("Amelia Garrett") Nicola-Yarred was born.

1890 - 3rd class survivor Mr David Vartanian was born to Azadia Vartanian and Sierma Agoien in Turkish Armenia.

1964 - 3rd class survivor Mrs Selma Augusta Emilia Asplund died of an intestinal obstruction at the age of 90.

1868 - Postal Clerk Mr Oscar Scott Woody was born.

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Columns: A Titanic Collector's Guide to Ebay


The world over, people are familiar with eBay, the online auction house. While Yahoo, MSN, Amazon, and other such sites have auctions, to which most of what I'm about to say will pertain, I'm choosing to focus on eBay. I have lost, and still lose, plenty of auctions, but now it's because I'm not willing to pay so much rather than my own mistakes.

If you're new to eBay, sign up and register before you find something you can't live without. They will require a credit card (so they have some recourse if you place bids fraudulently), but you can also use a debit card, so long as it has a major credit card logo on it, such as MasterCard or Visa. If you have any concerns about this, read their in Help section about why eBay is safe(http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/n-is-ebay-safe.html).

As with all categories of collecting on eBay, you need to check the listings often. The more specific your search is, the shorter amount of time it will take to skim over the listings. To narrow your search, you can have a long list of search criteria.

Here's an example:
titanic (35mm,70mm,cell,cel,trailer,trailor)
-(star,wars,dvd,cd-rom,laserdisc,game,vhs,cdrom)

That would translate to anything with the word Titanic in it plus 35mm OR 70mm OR cell OR cel OR trailer OR trailor but don't include anything with star, wars, dvd, cd-rom, laserdisc, game, vhs, or cdrom. That gives me a specific output for my search. If you want more options, use their search tips (http://pages.ebay.com/help/buyerguide/search.html).

Always (always!) search title and description. People are known to misspell things in titles, so if they spell it right anywhere else in the listing, you'll find it. These can be great auctions because your competition (other bidders) won't find them and the price will be lower. Who wants to type all that every time though? Something eBay has come up with is Favorite Searches. Do your search and scroll to the bottom of the page. Click "Save this Search" and it goes into your Favorite Searches. You can come back here by logging into My eBay and clicking the Favorites
tab.

Know what you're looking for and know how much it's gone for in the past. Next to the search button is a link to "Show Completed Items". See if a similar item was sold recently, how much it went for, and how many bids were placed. At this point, you should search for "titanic" at Yahoo, Amazon, and any other auction sites you can find. The smaller sites are a buyer's market since not as many people frequent their listings.

Sometimes you will find the same item you were looking for on eBay for a lot less. If given a chance, search their completed listings too. This will not take very long since Yahoo usually has maybe five pages of "titanic" items. When you're looking at over 60 pages of Titanic items, you ought to skim a couple pages of items that are about to close and then go to the newly listed items.

With eBay's Buy It Now and Yahoo's Buy It Price, you will miss out on a lot of listings if you wait to see what's closing in the next few days. Buy It Now means that if you're willing to pay a set price, you don't have to wait until the auction ends. For example, you might find a necklace listed at $15 dollars with a Buy It Now of $40. If you have looked at previous listings and saw similarly rare and quality necklaces for $50, you should use the Buy It Now so you don't have to end up paying $50 when the auction ends. Beware that sellers will use random numbers as their Buy It Now price. Make sure that you've looked over the other listings and past listings to make sure you aren't paying way more than you need to.

Click on those "mystery meat" titles. Too many times I've seen auctions titled "Titanic" and nothing more. Usually this is Titanic on VHS, but other times it's scale models, images, displays, and more. These go under many people's radar, so you're much more likely to win. Watch auctions, don't bid. Yahoo and eBay allow you to watch auctions without bidding on them. The main purpose of this is not to show your hand too early. If you see something listed for $9.99 and you're willing to pay $30 for it, watch it and bid in the last few minutes of the auction. That's right, I said minutes. Often when people skim the listing, they're more likely to check something out if someone has already bid. If while you're watching it, it goes above $30, kiss it goodbye. Otherwise, you can go back to the listing, look at the picture longingly, and decide if you are willing to pay more. You might be curious as to what it will go for and you have the option to watch it to the very end. But you really shouldn't torture yourself needlessly.

Look for online stores selling the item you're looking for. At Back to Titanic, we've done a lot of the searching for you in our Merchandise section. If you don't find it there, you can do extra searching on your own. A great example of the benefits of searching online stores is Ardleigh-Elliot's Titanic music boxes. The premiere issue of these eight music boxes plays "My Heart Will Go On" and can be bought at collectiblestoday.com for $34.95 and sell for under $25 at eBay. The second issue, which plays Southampton, goes for $34.95 at collectiblestoday.com but fetches about $30 at eBay. Since the last six issues aren't available online (to my knowledge) they sell for $35-$60 on eBay. Some people have tried to sell the first music box for $60 at MSN auctions and at the Titanic Artifact Exhibit they were trying to sell it for $50. Don't pay those prices!

Hot Titanic items on eBay are film cels and items from J. Peterman and Franklin Mint. The film cels are sold one at a time on a few sites, though I have yet to find one that bothers to tell you what's in the cel. Franklin Mint has a website where they still sell Rose dolls, but you need to buy the doll from them before you can get any of the accessories and outfits. J.Peterman closed their doors and so the only place you can get anything they sold is eBay.

Treat eBay like walking into a casino and keep your wits about you. The worst things I've done have been paying way too much and forgetting an auction. If you really cannot be at a computer when the auction ends, you might just bid your maximum amount. As frustrating as it can be, set that maximum in your mind. Sometimes you will get outbid by a few dollars and you'll say to yourself, I would have paid $3 more dollars. It's a slippery slope. If you're willing to pay $43 instead of your max of $40, you ought to have bid $43. But if you'd pay $3 more, why not pay $48? Or $50? And soon that maximum in your head is long gone and you're in the poor house. Don't bid in increments of $5. Most people think in terms of $10, $25, and $40. When you bid, make it $42.13. If someone else bids $40, you'll win by $1 (find out about proxy bidding at eBay). If you'd bid $40 after they did, you'd lose, since earlier placed bids take precedence. If someone bids $4 after you, you will win by 13 cents.

As hesitant as I've been about sharing all this information with Titanic collectors at large, I believe the healthy competition will benefit other people by saving them money and earning them great collections. Enjoy eBay!





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