Heard it through the Grapevine

A Key to Riches (or Just a Skeleton Key?)

By Ralph Finch

I was drifting around the internet when I floated across Lot 288, an R.M.S. Titanic White Star Line company key and ring with brass tag stamped “SERVICE FOR ‘E’ Deck.”

The seller said, “This highly important artifact was a master service key for access to the forward portion of E Deck, which provided steward Edmund Stone access to the crew-only passage ways of the ship. Stone would have made frequent use of this key in the course of his duties to his First-Class Passengers.

“Stone could have also used the key to provide passage for crewmen and passengers during the sinking of the vessel as Third-Class accommodations were located in this area.”

The Baath, England, auction house estimated the key at £40,000-60,000 ($51,035-76,552).

Per the internet: Edmund J. Stone was born in Southampton in 1879, and was 33 at the time of the Titanic disaster. His body was recovered by the cable ship Mackay-Bennett, body No 41, and was buried at sea (which seems a bit redundant). In his pockets: two knives, a pawn ticket, a silver watch, a pencil and keys.

Another small, corroded key for a locker on the Titanic has sold for £85,000 ($115,523). The key was used by Sidney Sedunary, 23, from Shirley, Southampton, a third-class steward. (If you think that’s a lot for a key that now can’t open a door, just about anything related to that ship goes for a boatload.) FYI: The sinking of the Titanic was the biggest news story to break until the onset of World War One. If you search, you can find things sold (or still offered) such as:

• A deck chair recovered from the scene by a body recovery ship. One of only seven known to exist.

• An extraordinary ticket from 1911, granting the holder access to the Harland & Wolff shipyard to attend the launching of the Titanic.

• A pre-sinking reverse glass souvenir painting intended for sale onboard the Titanic.

• An original negative from Mabel Fenwick, a Carpathia passenger, showing Titanic’s wreck site on the morning of April 15th, 1912.

• A pressed tin W. Ariel Gray & Co. cigarette case advertising Titanic’s maiden voyage. And, a prime reminder that smoking, especially on a ship, can be dangerous to your health.

• A pre-sinking advertisement for Vinolia Otto Toilet Soap, announcing its use in Titanic’s first class appointments.

• A religious pamphlet using the sinking of the Titanic as a propaganda tool.

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Editor’s note: As part of my plan to insert a bad joke in every story I include this: My grandfather was there just before the Titanic sank. He shouted three times that “It’s gonna sink!” … until they finally kicked him out of the movie theater.

TOP: The key found on Edmund Stone's body. MIDDLE: The locker key from the Titanic that sold for £85,000. The locker was for life jackets. BOTTOM: Photograph of Edmund J. Stone.

Heard it through the Grapevine

The eBayer said: “This is a rare, sandy-colored, vintage brick salvaged in Paris, and found at the old bakery 1800s!” The brick would be shipped for $30 from Lutsk, Ukraine. Really?

Oooo, La La: I’m a Brick!

Ralph Finch admits:

Despite the fact that an “alleged” friend said I was one brick short of a full load, I do admit that I am a brick collector, even if the Finches have less than a brick baker’s dozen.

I got started with a load of bricks under the heavy guidance of Roy Brown, a jar collector, a brick collector, a friend, and the Federation’s president back in 1976. And, encouraged by Roy, I attended at least two most-interesting brick collectors’ conventions. (FYI, Roy was once a top official in the U.S. brick union.)

So, being a collector of strange stuff, the brick shown here offered on eBay caught my eye for several reasons. It is a brick that is debossed “PARIS” and is said to have been from an old bakery that dated to the 1800s. (ARE YOU KIDDING ME? ) Thirty dollars? It recently cost the Finches $500 to ship four ounces of glass from London!

At first, I thought that this was a scam; if it was, how would I get money back from the Ukraine? (Threaten them with Putin’s name?) However, the seller had a few hundred positive eBay reviews, and claimed it would ship around the world yet excludes about 150 different countries, including Canada, and, I am embarrassed to admit, a dozen countries I’d never heard of. Where the heck are Reunion, Comoros, Mayotte, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the list went on. I checked; those places do exist. Mayotte, for example, is a small territory overseen by France.

I was tempted in part to get the brick, just to see if a brick can be mailed around the world for $30. But I was really tempted because Paris means a lot to the Finches; we danced on a Parisian sidewalk one warm evening, under a misty rain.

Probably produced by S. Reich & Co, Vienna, circa 1900, these mold-blown sealed blocks are all marked FALCONNIER. This large group was originally used for two large windows in a building erected in 1890, and dismantled in 2014. This set was auctioned in 2015 for $5,600!

Are You a Blockhead?

By Ralph Finch (he’s been called worse)

I know that a lot of people collect clay bricks — we have a few in our garden, along with a couple large globs of slag glass — but this combines two interests. Offered late November on eBay was “One Falconnier glass building block, model No. 9. Excellent Condition ...

“In the late 1880s, architect/engineer Gustave Falconnier (1845-1913) of Nyon, Switzerland, invented a novel type of glass building block or ‘glass brick’ (Germanglasbaustein or glassteine, Frenchbrique de verre). Falconnier’s bricks were blown in a mold, like bottles, but had the original feature of being sealed air-tight with a pastille of molten glass while hot; after cooling, the hot air trapped inside contracts, forming a partial vacuum. Their sides were recessed to take mortar and were laid up like ordinary masonry bricks, with or without embedded metal reinforcing.”

“Falconnier's sealed, air-tight design was a prize-winner at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and 1900 Paris Exposition.”