Titanic life jacket sells for $68,500

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.