Lifejacket Sells for $68,000

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An unused life jacket from the doomed Titanic ship sold for $68,500 in New York on Wednesday, Christie's auction house said.

The cork-filled life preserver -- still largely intact, but stained and torn in parts -- was thought to have been found by farmer John James Dunbar on the Halifax shoreline after the passenger ship sank off Newfoundland in April, 1912.

The liner sank during its maiden voyage from the British port of Southampton to New York when it hit an iceberg, causing some 1,500 people to die.

Christie's, which estimated that the life preserver would sell for $60,000 to $80,000, sold another Titanic life jacket last year in London for $119,000.

Maritime specialist Gregg Dietrich said the jacket -- believed to be one of six remaining -- appeared to have been unused because the shoulder straps were still intact. Titanic passengers tended to have had their life preservers cut off to ease removal from their damaged skin.

Dietrich said that the cork filling the jackets was so heavy that many of the survivors and victims of Titanic were found to have broken their jaws on them when they hit the water after jumping from the ship.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, Editing by Anthony Boadle)