Jun 12 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2708 -
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Sale 2708 - Lot 187

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(TITANIC.) Business card of Titanic survivor Hamad Hassab with related papers. 25 items in one folder, including Hassab's business card, 1¾ x 3¼ inches with minimal wear. Cairo and Beirut, August 1922
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Additional Details

Hamad Hassab (born circa 1885) was the sole Egyptian passenger aboard the Titanic. He had served as a tour guide and host for wealthy Americans Henry and Myra Harper during their visit to Cairo, and in return they invited him to accompany them back to America on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. According to family legend, he personally warned the Harpers that the boat was about to sink, helped load them and their dog aboard the half-full lifeboat, and then cut it away from the ship before it was swarmed by other passengers.

Offered here is his business card: "Hamad Hassab, Dragoman, having the distinction of being a survivor from the wreck of the Titanic." "Dragoman" is an Arabic term for a local tour guide. The card was issued by his employer, the Thomas Cook & Son tour company of Cairo.

Hassab's business card is accompanied by other memorabilia collected by the artist Ms. Arrah Lee Gaul Brennan (1888-1980) of Philadelphia during her trip to Cairo and Beirut in 1922, including a full-page printed itinerary from Thomas Cook & Son; 6 other pieces of printed ephemera; a receipt for a gold ring purchased by Brennan from a Cairo antiquities dealer; and a packet of 16 small 3¼ x 2¼-inch photos of the trip. One apparently shows Brennan and a friend holding hands with a tall mustachioed dragoman who bears some resemblance to the only known photograph of Hamad Hassab.

For the most extensive account of Hassab, see Yasmeen Saad, "The Untold Story of ‘The Mysterious', the Egyptian Man Who Survived the Titanic," Vice Magazine, 26 October 2018.

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