‘Titanic’ Artifacts Sold To Offset Movie’s Costs Items Listed In Current J. Peterman Gift Book

If you’re hoping to find an unusual gift for the movie buff on your Christmas list, you may be able to do that while also helping 20th Century Fox retire its considerable debt from the budget of “Titanic.”

Some pricey, one-of-a-kind artifacts among the “Titanic” collectibles offered in the current J. Peterman Gift Book include a 13-foot fiberglass anchor used in James Cameron’s “Titanic” ($25,000), and six fiberglass lifeboats - none of which is seaworthy ($25,000 each).

But you have to hurry. Though the catalog came out just two weeks ago, the majority of the items - including crewmen’s caps ($150 each), Kate Winslet’s evening gown ($11,500), glass water pitchers ($375 each), and ashtrays ($350 each) - have been sold.

“They have almost sold completely out of everything,” says Alan Adler, director of archives at 20th Century Fox, which co-financed the film with Paramount Pictures but which holds worldwide merchandising and licensing rights. “There were orders coming in from people who had seen (the catalog) at the printers.”

Fox, Adler says, was looking to sell materials from the $200 million epic because we “wanted to lessen the negative cost.” He refused to say how much Fox hoped to earn from the sales, although proceeds from the one-of-a-kind items (excluding things such as T-shirts that have essentially unlimited supplies) would yield more than $400,000.

According to Adler, “this kind of selling of original movie material has never happened before in direct mail. It’s kind of a new opportunity - the latest wrinkle in the evolution of movie merchandising.” In fact, it has never happened at all with a Fox film, and spokesmen for several other studios said they couldn’t remember it ever happening.

Cameron’s meticulous re-creation of the ship was based on blueprints released by Harland and Wolff of Belfast, Northern Ireland, the ship’s builders. The companies that made the original carpeting, silverware and dishes duplicated them for the film.

“We had some wonderful materials that really need their own kind of precious treatment,” Adler says. “We thought these items could go on to service the movie and help promote the film. It would be a way of taking a piece of the movie with them.”