Finding Treasures Among Insurer's Wreckage - Leslie Scism

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204059804577227211434947348.html?google_editors_picks=true

For more than a century, Atlantic Mutual Insurance Co. covered yachts, steamships laden with gold, and even a seemingly indestructible passenger liner called the RMS Titanic.
Then last year, the company itself sank—leaving behind a treasure trove of nautical memorabilia that is now up for sale...
As of last month, Cynthia Hoogland, the owner of Avila Fine Art who is cataloguing the collection, had identified 245 artifacts.
A favorite is an 1850 letter from 14 clerks to the company's then president. They "respectfully" requested "gas fixtures may be affixed to our respective desks" in place of sperm-oil candles. The switch, they wrote, would cut down on "injury to our eyes from the constant flickering" and improve their performance.