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Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

In this undated photo provided by Henry Aldridge on Friday, March 15, 2013 shows the violin that was played by the bandmaster of the Titanic as the oceanliner sank, Devizes, England.  (AP Photo/Henry Aldridge)

A British auction house says it has unearthed the violin played by the bandmaster of the Titanic as the oceanliner sank.

Survivors of the Titanic have said they remember the band, led by Wallace Hartley, playing on deck even as passengers boarded lifeboats after the ship hit an iceberg.

Hartley's violin was believed lost in the 1912 disaster, but auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son say an instrument unearthed in 2006 has undergone rigorous testing and proven to be Hartley's.

The auction house says it spent the past seven years and thousands of pounds determining the water-stained violin's origins, consulting numerous experts including government forensic scientists and Oxford University.

It said Friday the violin will go on display at Belfast City Hall, less than a mile from where Titanic was built.