Titanic 100th anniversary: 5,000 artefacts to be auctioned

A chunk of the Titanic's hull is among 5,000 artefacts that will be auctioned in April in time for the 100th anniversary of the disaster, in a sale that could garner hundreds of millions of dollars.

Nearly a century after the April 15, 1912, sinking of the ocean liner that hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic, a New York City auction is being readied by Guernsey's Auctioneers & Brokers.

The auction will be conducted 100 years, plus a day, after the Titanic set sail from England with New York as its destination.

The collection was appraised in 2007 at $189 million (£120 million), including some intellectual property alongside the items plucked by remote-controlled probes from the pitch-black depths more than two miles below the ocean's surface.

Artefacts include a 17-ton section of the Titanic's hull, as well as personal belongings of passengers and crew, such as a mesh purse and eyeglasses. A bronze cherub that once adorned the Grand Staircase is among the collection, as are fine china, table settings and ship fittings – even the stand upon which the ship's wheel stood.

By court order, the items cannot be sold individually and must go to a buyer who agrees to properly maintain the collection and make it available for occasional public viewing.