RMS Titanic mail room keys fetch record proceeds in U.K. auction

The keys and chain to the mail room on board the RMS Titanic are now in the hands of a private collector who paid more than $200,000 for them during an auction in the U.K.

The sale — a record for Titanic memorabilia — recalls the bravery of five postal clerks. Three of the clerks were from the U.S. Post Office and two from the Royal Mail. The ship’s postmaster was Oscar Scott Woody, a 15-year postal veteran and a railroad mail clerk before he began his service aboard the Titanic.

The keys were recovered from Woody’s body and given to his widow. “The Postmaster and his staff were the crème de la crème,” Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge told The Times of London. “To serve on a transatlantic steamer, you had to be in the top 1 percent of your profession because you had to sort through hundreds of letters per hour.”