In 2016 there appeared stories of an unknown lifebelt going on display in an exhibition at Southampton  It’s provenance was as follows;

a New York dockworker saved a Titanic lifebelt from being discarded and kept it in his possession later the lifebelt was auctioned off by an New York auction house in the 1980’s the buyer kept it his entire life and left it to its current’s owner in his will.

The auction house was contacted, but the auction having taken place in the 1980’s was not catalogued in a computer and no images of the lifebelt were available. But it was confirmed a lifebelt was sold during these years. A similar story appeared in 2017. The provenance of these lifebelts may have looked good in the beginning. But it now appeared that somebody owned two lifebelts that came of Titanic.

Not long after, a third was on display in Chelmsford, now raising suspicion. It was said that it was taken from the Southampton museum for this display, but that proved to be incorrect. There even appeared images of a fourth lifebelt. 

Looking at these images they looked to good in comparison with the known lifebelts to be of 1912 and although the lifebelt at the Seacity museum had the right markings, not all the markings on another lifebelt matched. The markings did not match the known markings of the Titanic lifebelts and them being made using the wrong material and use of another stitching method showed them to be replicas.

It was opted that these although not coming from Titanic could have come from other White Star liners, like for example Olympic which was supplied with the same amount of lifebelts, but them not being used ( If lifebelts were kept in storage without proper maintenance the cork inside tends to crumble. The crumbled cork will soak up water and loose its buoyancy.), could have been replaced over the years hence the different makers markings But it appeared that these lifebelts were created using the wrong material and wrong stitching.

One of four replica lifebelts, this one on display shows the wrong makersmark. The diamond shaped stamp at the bottom mentions

Fosbery
Board of Trade
certified & approved

Richstreet Limehouse
London

As shown before, this stamp does not match up with the original lifebelts

The Weinke lifebelt

The Wisconsin State Journal of April 5^th, 1998, mentioned another Titanic lifebelt. It was bought for a dollar in an estate sale ten years earlier by Michele Weinke, she wrote to museums wanting to sell or donate the belt. But it was deemed a hoax, there would be no lifebelt off Titanic in the United States, let alone Wisconsin. Weinke took it to a homeshow where antiques were being appraised. Here it was said to be 150 to 175 dollars in worth. The next day the appraiser said in an radio interview that lifebelt could be worth 25.000 dollars with the, then current, high interest in the Titanic.

They tried to find out how the, old cork and canvas, lifebelt came to Wisconsin. Delving trough old newspapers they found that several Titanic passengers came from the Wisconsin area. It was theorized that one of the bodies was send home still wearing it’s lifebelt.

Taking a look at the lifebelt, that is dated May 20^th, 1910. It is a lifebelt to be worn around the waste and the name White Star Line and Titanic were written on it instead of stamped. But as we have seen earlier, the Titanic lifebelts did not carry the ships name. And it is the wrong style.

It certainly is a real 1910’s lifebelt, just not from Titanic.

- Photograph Lacrosse Tribune  April 13^th 2012.