Antique Chinese porcelain from sunken ship to be sold online

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- About 350,000 pieces of antique Chinese porcelain, from the biggest maritime disaster of its day and a huge marine salvage operation, are to be auctioned over the Internet.

The porcelain, some of which went on display at Harrods department store Thursday, will be put up for auction in over 16,000 lots, with round-the-clock bidding over a period of eight days from November 17.

British-born seaman Mike Hatcher recovered the items last year from the Tek Sing (True Star), a Chinese junk which sank in the South China Sea after striking a reef off the coast of Indonesia in February 1822.

"It became the biggest marine disaster of the times with the loss of 1,600 lives, which was greater than the Titanic," Hatcher told Reuters. "It's also definitely the largest marine archeological recovery ever done."

The artifacts will be displayed at the Antique Gallery of Harrods until Saturday.

Sandy Mallet, director of the Internet auction house icollector.com that will host the sale, told Reuters the find was remarkable for the quality of the goods, many of which seemed untouched by nearly 200 years under the water.

"I don't think there is anything left like this again, it's too perfect. It's too huge, too romantic, too much of a treasure ever to be repeated again," he said.

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