A silver cup given to the captain of a rescue ship by a Titanic survivor has been sold at auction for STG130,000 ($A277,570).
American socialite Margaret Brown gave the item to Sir Arthur Henry Rostron as a thank you a month after being saved from the vessel - which sank in 1912 claiming the lives of around 1,500 people.
The sterling silver loving cup was one of a number of Titanic lots sold by auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire - who also sold a biscuit from the ill-fated ship for STG15,000 ($A32,000).
The cup was sold to a British collector for more than three times its guide price after a bidding war broke.
"This is without doubt one of the most iconic objects relating to the Titanic disaster and carries a truly impeccable provenance," company spokesman Andrew Aldrige said.
"At one we point we had eight telephone bidders - including one on board a private jet off the west coast of America.
"The loving cup has now become the third most expensive item to be sold from the Titanic."
Capt Rostron and his crew on the Carpathia rescued 705 Titanic survivors and Brown - who later became known as "the unsinkable Molly Brown" - was on one of the last lifeboats to reach his ship.
The cup she presented to her rescuer bore the dedication: "Presented to Captain A H Rostron RD, RNR, Commander of the RMS Carpathia.
"In grateful recognition and appreciation of his heroic and efficient service in the rescue of the survivors of the Titanic on April 15th 1912, and of the generous and sympathetic treatment he accorded us on his ship. From the Survivors of the Titanic."
