A walking stick that was used on the Titanic has become the center of a dispute.
The cane was owned by a wealthy first-class passenger on board the doomed ship, which sank in 1912 after it hit an iceberg.
The cane has a unique feature, because it lights up. A battery-powered tip proved invaluable when an heiress named Ella White found herself on lifeboat 8 after the ship went down.
“Heroically, she took this cane, this stick, lit it up and spent the night waving it back and forth in the hope, in an effort to attract a rescue ship,” author Walter Lord told Inside Edition.
In his book "A Night to Remember," Lord wrote about White and how she "appointed herself a sort of signalman. She had a cane with a built-in electric light and during most of the night she waved it fiercely about.”
The cane is being put up for auction by a descendant of White's. It's believed it could fetch as much as $500,000.
But another descendant, Samuel Hoving, is disputing ownership. He says the cane was in his father's possession for years until it mysteriously vanished.
“I grew up with this item in the umbrella stand where we grew up here in Manhattan,” he told Inside Edition. “My father was very proud of it. It became missing from my father's apartment in the 70s.”
He added: “I am wholly protesting the auction and will contest it and try to halt this sale."
On Monday, the lawyer for Samuel Hoving told Inside Edition they have agreed to let the auction go ahead later this week, saying they will figure things out after the sale.
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