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CHRONICLETHE WORLDSUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2024The Latest Titanic CoverWe tell, exclusively, how this historic item was rescued from a second-hand store. It was bought by, in hiswords, "a man from the mountains of Colorado," for three dollars, and it has just been auctioned... Until now,there had only been 22 covers known; two coming from Spain, posted from Vic and Blanes. The Catalan EsteveDomenech, one of the great academics of philately and postal history in the world, had confirmed theirauthenticity.
By Luigi Benedicto Borges«I am a man from the mountains of Colorado: I don’t know about the ocean». Chris Moe, a treasure hunter fromDenver in his sixties, jokes about his unexpected leading role in the story of the Titanic, the mythicaltransatlantic ship that sank in the icy waters of the North Atlantic on the night of April 14, 1912, when aniceberg crossed the path of an inaugural voyage that connected the city of Southampton with New York. Only706 of the 2,208 passengers and crew members on board survived.
Moe knew the story of the transatlantic ship, but he never dreamed of finding one of the letters with the Titanicmark that are known today. He bought it for 3 dollars (2.5 euros) and sold it on the internet for $10,000 (9,800euros). But hours before the auction ended, his father, an emeritus professor of Pediatrics and Neurology at theUniversity of Colorado, passed away. The final bid coincided with the transfer of Paul G. Moe's body to themorgue, covered with the flag of the United States in honor of his past as a surgeon in the Air Force.
«I supervised the end of the auction sitting next to my father's corpse, trying to understand what the universewanted to tell me», recalls Moe, who recounts exclusively to Crónica the details of a discovery that he will«never» forget. «Getting a piece of Titanic history is something that marks you for life», he summarizes.
Everything began on a March afternoon. Moe was rummaging through the blue containers of Goodwill Outlet, aparticular second-hand store in Denver where donations and belongings from homes and storage units emptiedafter the death of their owners or the bankruptcy of their renters accumulate. The products are sold by weight,and buyers have only seconds to decide where to rummage. Once acquired and cataloged, the material—jewelry, clothes, dolls—that they do not want is usually put up for sale at the Mile High Flea Market, the fleamarket of the city, continuously operating from Friday to Sunday, from seven in the morning until five in theafternoon.
Moe has been in the business for a decade. Highly respected among his peers, he was recently commended forhaving found a testicuzzi—a hot tub for testicles. He was not having his best streak when he came across a largeplastic bag full of stamps, envelopes, and other interesting fragments of seemingly historical papers, accordingto his words. He bought it for three dollars, but not being a stamp collector, he thought of selling it at the fleamarket for 20, unless a friend or acquaintance appeared who would give him 10. «A good profit» for his currentstandards.
«When I got home, I reviewed what seemed to be the personal stamp collection of a gentleman. There wereindividual pieces, others stuck to envelopes, old money, old stock certificates. Among everything stood out anenvelope with a mark that said "Titanic" in purple ink. There was nothing inside it. Very excited, I began myinvestigation, and the rest is history!», he jokes.
«I have been able to examine that cover (envelope). It is original without any doubt», explains EsteveDomenech, a member of the Royal Academy of Hispanic Philately and Postal History. «It is of the French type,which are the best cataloged. It is a very interesting piece», affirms Domenech, a graduate in Library Scienceand Documentation from the University of Barcelona and a judicial expert in documentation.
The main pursuer of the cataloging of these covers—there are now 23 with the one found by Moe—is TomFortunato, who has dedicated more than 30 years of his life to tracking them down since in 1986 when heacquired one of them for 10 dollars at the annual stamp fair Stepex in Elmira, New York. Moe turned to him toauthenticate his find after Brian, a friend of his from the flea market, saw the envelope gathering dust on a shelf.
«Brian sent me a lot of information about the piece, including the article “Covers That Missed The Boat” byTom Fortunato, with whom I contacted immediately».
«Yes, he wrote to me several months ago and asked me to confirm that it was a letter destined to travel on theTitanic. And yes, it met all the criteria: its marks were legitimate», explains Fortunato to Crónica fromRochester, New York.
“Getting a piece of history is a gamble,” says Chris Moe, who tells 'Chronicle' that he sold the envelope on thesame day his father died, a surgeon in the US Air Force who was a friend of the Shah of Iran. The letter wassent from Lille to a hair growth and corsetry company in Washington. The discovery coincides with the openingof an exhibition about the mythical transatlantic ship to the public: in Madrid, an immersive exhibition with 5-Dtechnology has just premiered, which has sold more than 40,000 tickets to date.
Protagonist of one of the most shocking disasters of the 20th century, the mystique of the Titanic—the largestpassenger ship of the time—still remains.
In recent decades, 23 covers with the "Titanic" mark have been found in various forms: mostly with sanserif butalso serif, and italicized serif lettering. Except for a Danish letter that was destined for Seattle, the rest were sentby mail in March of 1912 from France and Spain to the offices of the M.A. Winter Company in Washington,DC. Built between 1908 and 1909 by order of Colonel Mahlon Adolphus Winter and George W. Faris, they rantheir flourishing business of "patented medicines," a term under which they sold hair growth products, snakeoil, corsets, and medical quackery.
In 1906, the British medical journal 'The Lancet' had cataloged their products as "quack advertising," and in1912 Winter and Faris expanded their building to convert it into a post office station of the United States PostalService, the first in all of Washington.
To verify the covers, Domenech and Fortunato check that they contain the mailing and transit postmarks: thefile number written by the sender corresponding to the reference number of the advertisements in foreignnewspapers in which Winter Company advertised its products and discounts; the receiving postmarks from theWashington post office (on the back); the receipt and identification markings of the Winter Company; and—thecrucial part—the Titanic mark, which indicates that it was the ship destined to transport them.
The one found by Moe was sent from Lille on March 12, 1912. Given that the correspondence reached itsdestination and the ship’s final resting place lies at the bottom of the ocean, what happened to them? The launchof the transatlantic ship took place on March 31, 1912, and on September 18 of that same year, White Star Line,the shipping company that owned it, announced that the maiden voyage would be on March 20, 1912.
That voyage ended up being delayed until April 10 because the Titanic had to give way to another of the giantships of the British company, the Olympic, which had collided with a warship, the Hawke, and needed repairs.Since one of the priorities of the Universal Postal Union was the speedy delivery of mail, the letters planned totravel from Europe to the United States aboard the Titanic were transferred to other ships. That their shipmentwas delayed three weeks was unacceptable, even though the letters had already been docketed as Titanic mailby French postal officials and by the White Star Line itself. Hence, it is believed, the three different styles ofmarkings.
MUSEUM PIECESConsidered "museum pieces" and highly sought after by collectors for their rarity, the two Spanish letters weresent to the Winter Company from the corsetry of Dolores de Garriga in Blanes (Girona) and from the medicalquackery of Joaquín Bussalleu in Vic (Barcelona) on March 3 and 5, respectively. "We must reclaim the rarityand importance of the two Spanish letters," highlights Domenech.
"I am a great collector of many things, but I have never had a passion for the sea, the oceans, or sailing ships,"Moe justifies when asked why he decided to put it up for sale in August. He listed it on eBay, ignoringrecommendations to put it in the hands of reputable auction houses like Sotheby's, Christie's, or Henry Aldridge& Son. The initial listing price was $2,500 (2,255 euros), but Moe noted that "there was a lot of interest andtraffic around the listing" as soon as he published it. Four bidders competed to acquire the letter, and the winnerwas a Canadian collector of "Titanic memorabilia and the White Star Line.""To obtain the relic, he paid more than $1,600 (1,442 euros) in import fees to Canadian Customs. In total, hespent $12,000 (10,824 euros) for it. He was very emotional on receiving it. He sent me a message thanking mefor selling such an incredible item. Of course, he also left me positive feedback on my eBay account," heassures.
The Canadian collector had reasons to be happy and relieved. No sooner had the auction ended, on August 16,than Moe received a private message from an unknown person claiming to be from Dubai saying that he hadmissed the end of the auction due to "the time difference" and offered him $5,000 more if he canceled the sale.
"I replied no, that I was a man of strong moral principles thanks to my good upbringing and that I would deliverit to the rightful winner," Moe emphasizes.
With his father's body present, it was "the least I could do." "That day I cried and I cried. Out of joy andsadness. I came to think that the gods left me a message so that I would not forget the day the Earth lost one ofthe greatest men in the world, my father," he says.
Doctor Paul G. Moe died at home at the age of 93. He grew up in the small town of Granite Falls, Minnesota,during the Great Depression, and was left with the love of his life, Barbara, with whom he fathered sevenchildren, two of them adopted. The "pain" he suffered during his childhood drove him to become "a beacon ofhope and peace," first as a chaplain in the Air Force and later as a Peace Corps volunteer. He was stationed inSweden and Iran, where his friend the Shah gave him several gifts.
An active member of the charitable Easter Seals organization, Doctor Paul retired at 85 as an emeritus professorat the Anschutz Medical Campus of the University of Colorado. "They forced him to retire. But he was sobeloved that they gave him a small office to continue guiding students even though he was not on the payroll,"recalls his son.
With the money earned, Moe will look for ties with designs and signatures of guitarist Jerry Garcia. Given thehigh sale price, eBay withheld the payment until the buyer showed his total satisfaction. Moe will receive the$10,000 on September 16... the day of his father's funeral. As DiCaprio said in James Cameron's film about theship, "life is a game of chance."Caption: A PURPLE MARK, 5-D, AND A "HEROIC" FATHERThe letter bears a purple ink "Titanic" mark certifying that the letter was destined to travel across the Atlanticbefore its fateful inaugural voyage, which is now recreated with 5-D technologies in an exhibition in Madrid.
Doctor Paul G. Moe suffered in the world. A veteran of the Air Force, a member of the Peace Corps in Iran andSweden, and an emeritus professor at the University of Colorado, he died on the day his son sold the Titanicletter.
P. G. LILLO / CHRONICLE.