Video: Titanic violin sold for £900,000 The violin, reputedly played by the Titanic's bandmaster Wallace Hartley as the ill-fated vessel sank, was sold at auction in Wiltshire for £900,000. None of the musicians survived in the 1912 disaster in the North Atlantic, but the instrument, with Hartley's name on it, is believed to have been found at sea with the musician's body more than a week after the Titanic sank. According to some accounts, the band played the hymn "Nearer, My God, To Thee" to keep spirits up as the passengers boarded lifeboats in the early hours of April 15, 1912. The auction house said the violin had been subjected to numerous tests to check its authenticity since it was discovered in 2006. It said earlier this year that the violin was Hartley's "beyond reasonable doubt." The violin, of German make, was a gift from Hartley's fiancée Maria Robinson, and was engraved with the words "For Wallace on the occasion of our engagement from Maria." The musicians have been hailed as heroes for sacrificing their chances of escape.