This lifebelt was collected by John James Dunbar when he went to Halifax to help with the cleanup after the sinking of Titanic. On his return, he brought the lifebelt back to North Lake, Nova Scotia It is unclear whether it came from a beach "sweep" along the shores of Nova Scotia, looking for remains of the disaster, or from a victim who had been recovered by the Mackay-Bennett, the Minia or one of the other ships sent out on the search for bodies. It is also possible that it originated from debris picked up by one of the vessels (it is well documented that all of the ships brought back pieces of floating debris, such as fragments of wood and deck chairs). Since the ocean’s currents swept bodies and wreckage away from Nova Scotia, it is unlikely to have come from its shores. As a matter of fact, the crew of the Mackay-Bennett had expressed their concern that once the bodies were carried too far south they would no longer be preserved by the cold water and therefore quickly decompose. Mr. Dunbar apparently helped whenever help was needed; he reportedly also did the same after the Great Halifax Explosion of 1917[1].

The lifebelt eventually came into the possession of his grandson, Winston Dunbar MacQuarrie, who had never known his maternal grandfather, and after a while nobody thought much of the cork-filled canvas "life preserver". "We actually played with it because we didn't know anything about it," MacQuarrie once said in an interview in Windsor, where he lived. "It was a toy. My sister Joyce jumped off the haymow in it so she wouldn't get hurt." It was seemingly never looked after, and MacQuarrie remembered putting it in a trunk at age eighteen, never to be thought of again until June 2008 when it was brought up for auction at Christie’s. It sold for $68,500 to an anonymous bidder[2].

[1] https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-a-rare-early-20th-century-life-preserver-attributed-5093804/?

[2]https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2008/06/01/titanic_sum_expected_for_ns_familys_historic_life_lifebelt.html