A postage label from a parcel addressed to a wireless operator on the ill-fated Titanic luxury ocean liner has failed to sell at a Melbourne auction.
The label from the parcel, which failed to arrive at the English port of Southampton before the ship embarked on its fateful voyage, was expected to fetch $20,000 when it went under the hammer at Mossgreen Auctions on Tuesday night.
But the historic memento did not find a buyer and will now be available to buy at its reserve price of $15,000, Mossgreen postal specialist Torsten Weller told AAP.
Sent from Chelmsford on April 11, 1912, the label reads: "Marconi Operator, R.M.S. Titanic, c/o The White Star Line, Southampton."
Mr Weller said the stamped relic, provided by an anonymous vendor from Europe, is believed to have been attached to a package of blank telegram forms given to Titanic's sister-ship Olympic to deliver on its next crossing to the US.
"The Olympic made it to New York but the Titanic, of course, never did," he said.
A total of 1503 people died when the Titanic sunk after hitting an iceberg just four days into its maiden voyage.
Among the victims was Marconi senior wireless operator Jack Phillips, 25, who is remembered for transmitting SOS messages until the sinking ship lost power.
The only other operator, Harold Bride, survived the accident and recounted his experience when the rescue ship Carpathia docked in New York.
Bride told The New York Times that Phillips was "a brave man" who had stuck to his work "while everybody else was raging about".
"I will never live to forget the work of Phillips for the last awful fifteen minutes," Bride told the newspaper in an article published just days after the disaster.
Both Titanic and Olympic had the ship prefix RMS, meaning they were under contract as a Royal Mail Ship.
Mr Weller said the postal memorabilia "tells a little bit more about the story rather than simply being a bolt or a screw".
"There was a key from a locker onboard the Titanic, just a little locker key about two inches long, that sold for PS80,000 ($A132,600) in England recently," he said.
"This is probably more interesting because it has a little bit more to say about how communications were in that period, in that the ships carried wireless operators."
