INTRIGUING items salvaged from the wreck of the Titanic are to go on public display in Liverpool for the first time.

The objects, including pince-nez spectacles, a lady’s wrist watch, a third-class White Star Line cup, a ventilation grille, five tie-pins and a five-dollar bank-note will go on display at the Merseyside Maritime Museum on Friday.

Exhibition curator Alan Scarth said this was the most exciting collection of items he had dealt with in 25 years in the job, and added the display gave him a “shiver down the spine”.

He said: “These objects are very evocative of the most famous shipwreck of all time. The personal items are particularly moving because they represent the terrible human cost of the disaster.”

More than 1,500 lives were lost when Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg.

The bow and stern sections of the wreck lie 1,970 feet apart, 2.5 miles down, surrounded by debris scattered far and wide. It was among this debris that the items to be exhibited were discovered in 1985.

Dr Scarth explained that the small cup, which is white with a red flag emblem, was probably used by third-class passengers for drinking hot chocolate.

The wrist watch, he said, probably belonged to a wealthy lady as this sort of watch was not widely available at the time.

Pince-nez spectacles were found in a leather case bearing a Parisian maker’s name. Dr Scarth suggests they may have belonged to an American passenger who had travelled in France and bought them before boarding the liner at Cherbourg.

One of the gold tie-pins has somebody’s initials engraved on it, indicating the owner was fairly affluent.