A rare piece of Titanic history will be up for bid later this month during a live auction on Jan. 27 by Towson’s Alex Cooper Auctioneers.
The object available for auction is what’s called a “facing slip” from the mail room of the Titanic, the ocean liner that sank on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean on the night of April 14-15, 1912.
A facing slip was used by postal clerks for sorting mail. Each slip had a pre-printed destination, a handstamp that showed the ship’s postmark, name, and the name of the clerk who handled the mail.
The item up for auction is imprinted for Brooklyn, N.Y. with the date stamp of April 10, the ship name “Titanic,” and the name of the clerk, “O.S. Woody.”
According to the Alex Cooper website, Woody was celebrating his 44th birthday with four other clerks on the night of the wreck. Immediately after the collision with the iceberg, the five clerks “immediately began to haul the mail to the main deck to get it aboard the lifeboats. 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.”
The Titanic was a Royal Mail Steamer contracted to carry mail from Great Britain to the United States. It’s believed the ship was carrying as many as 3,300 large sacks of envelopes and packages when it sank, and the clerks were so efficient they could sort as many as 60,000 pieces of mail per day.
Oscar Scott Woody came from North Carolina and had spent years working in railway post offices. The Titanic assignment was a move forward in his career, and this was to be his first trip across the Atlantic Ocean.
One week after the ship sank, Woody’s body was recovered by the crew of the cable ship “Mackay-Bennett.” His body was kept afloat in the freezing water by the life preserver he was wearing. A number of these facing slips were found in his pockets, along with other personal articles. Woody was buried at sea.
There is a question as to whether Woody put these slips into his pocket as the ship was sinking to document mail that was going to be lost, but what the Alex Cooper team deems more likely is that he’d put them in his pocket because of a flaw in the stamping before the collision even occurred. Nearly all of the slips have Woody’s name double-stamped on them.
“Most likely, Woody had prepared these slips, but when he realized that they were hard to read, he did them over again. The imperfect ones, he stuffed into his pocket, meaning to throw them out when he could spare a moment. He never got around to it, however,” according to the press release announcing the auction.
Alex Cooper Auctioneers is celebrating its 100th year anniversary. It’s offering this rare piece of RMS Titanic history for auction, whereas the rest of these slips are in museums or institutional collections.
“Lot 1500, Rare RMS “Titanic” Postal Ephemera, April 10, 1912, is in very good condition with a general toning and light stains around the edges consistent with seeping water. It is estimated at $5,000 – $8,000, easily a small price to pay for a piece of history that has entangled itself in the minds of millions since it’s tragic and horrific downfall.”
Online bidding is open on the Alex Cooper website now. Final bidding takes place at the live auction on Jan. 27, 2024 at Alex Cooper Auctioneers, located at 908 York Road, Towson, MD.
The live auction begins at 10:00 am, though an Alex Cooper spokesperson told Baltimore Fishbowl they don’t expect the face slip to come up for auction until around 1:00 pm. Bidding starts at $2,500.
