Judge will decide fate of Titanic artifacts after Jan.

NORFOLK

A federal judge said Monday that she would decide sometime after Jan. 4 the fate of thousands of artifacts from the Titanic shipwreck.

Premier Exhibitions Inc., the parent company of RMS Titanic Inc., has asked U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith to award it sole title to the artifacts with covenants to preserve them forever.

Smith could agree to that or award the company the estimated value of the pieces: $110 million.

Theoretically, the judge could auction the treasure on the courthouse steps, but that conclusion appears unlikely. Smith, who has overseen the case for more than 10 years, has indicated in the past her desire that the collection remain intact.

Smith heard six days of testimony spread over the past month, concluding Monday with an appraiser who pegged the worth of the artifacts at $110 million.

She gave the attorneys until Jan. 4 to file any follow-up briefs and, after that, said she would come to "as quick a conclusion as I can."

The Titanic case has dragged on since 1992 when the original RMS Titanic company went to court and obtained approval as the sole "salvor in possession," meaning it is the only entity allowed to dive on the wreck site to obtain artifacts.

Since then, the company cared for the artifacts and continues to display them in various traveling exhibits, but has been prevented from otherwise selling them. For several years, the company sought a museum to house the pieces, but those efforts failed.

On Monday, Stephen Rogers, a retired Navy lieutenant commander from Maryland who assisted in appraising the 6,000 artifacts, said that despite the harsh economic climate, there remains intense interest in the auction world in high-end nautical artifacts.

RMS Titanic and its predecessors have conducted seven expeditions to the North Atlantic wreck site, retrieving nearly 8,000 artifacts. The company obtained ownership through the French government of roughly 1,800 of those artifacts, but the company has already agreed to preserve those as well.

The company also notified the court that it has begun initial planning for another expedition to the site, tentatively scheduled for 2010. The Titanic struck an iceberg and sunk on its maiden voyage in 1912.