Part of Mr. Ken Marschall’s collection is this front half of a Fosbery lifebelt. He purchased it in early 1997 from an elderly lady in England. The woman had contacted Ed Kamuda of the Titanic Historical Society for authentication. The letter included some photographs of half of a lifebelt with faded purple ink stamps showing it as the front, and at the back “TITANIC” is inked on in bold letters.  The photos also showed that the cork blocks had been taken out. At the time, the Francatelli lifebelt with its distinctive purple stamps was still in private ownership, and to common knowledge no Titanic lifebelts had markings or the ship’s name on them. Therefore, Mr. Kamuda thought the lifebelt could not be authentic and forwarded the letter to Mr. Don Lynch, the official historian for the THS, to get his assessment.

Mr. Lynch also felt that the lifebelt could not have come from Titanic and wrote to the lady expressing this,but also told her that he was passing her inquiry to Ken Marschall who had closely examined several bona fide Titanic lifebelts over the decades. In September 1996 Mr. Marschall wrote to the woman enumerating his concerns and inquiring about provenance. The lady replied that she really didn’t know but that the lifebelt had been in the family for many decades. Eventually thought to perhaps be a replica or prop made for some theater or film production, it was offered for sale to him. As it looked like a decent copy of a Titanic-style lifebelt if not really from the ship, Mr. Marschall purchased it purely for its curiosity value.

Upon personal inspection it was evident that the object was definitely a Titanic-style lifebelt and that it was old. The dimensions, linen fabric and thread count all matched known artifacts. But the unusual purple stamps on it made it, at the time, very much an outlier. There was no proof that it had anything to do with Titanic. With these odd stamps it could have been some earlier or later model of Fosbery lifebelt, and come from any vessel of the period, with someone simply lettering "TITANIC" on it later for fun. Since, at the time, both Mr. Marschall and the Titanic Historical Society had only seen examples of plain Titanic lifebelts without stamps on them, including all known archival photographs and newsreel films, its authenticity was very much in doubt.
 
It wasn’t until 2007 that Miss Francatelli's lifebelt came to light, exhibiting the identical purple markings as the one Mr. Marschall had purchased several years before. When he saw photographs of this bona fide Titanic lifebelt with rock-solid provenance displaying the exact same stamps as his, the pieces of the puzzle began to fall together. The large, hand-lettered “TITANIC” must have simply been added later to identify the artifact.

As the cork had long ago been removed, Mr. Marschall decided in 2014 to have the missing blocks replaced with new, non-acidic foam blocks and the pockets restitched along the sides by Emmy Award-winning tailor Radford Polinsky using the original whipstitch needle holes which were still visible. 

This half lifebelt, now known to be matching Titanic lifebelts in every aspect, is believed to be authentic and has since been displayed at the Titanic Branson and Pigeon Forge exhibitions and at the Catalina Island Museum.

In June of 2023 the foam block inserts were replaced with slightly more accurately-sized EVA blocks which better simulates cork, and the appearance of the side whipstitching was improved, this time using a double linen thread.  Mr. Steven Proto, with his comprehensive experience making replica Titanic lifebelts, was the perfect man for the job.