Titanic Violin Fetches 3 Times More Than Expected

A violin believed to have belonged to the bandleader on the Titanic, who famously went down with the ship, was already expected to fetch a record price at auction: almost $500,000, which would have made it the most expensive piece of Titanic memorabilia ever sold. Well, it hit that record mark and then some: It sold for three times the guide price, almost $1.5 million, the BBC reports. According to a diary belonging to bandleader Wallace Hartley's fiancee, the violin was salvaged from the water and given to her. (More Titanic stories.)