SS United States - The Curious Case of the Castrated Bull - Part I

By Mark B. Perry (Screenwriter & Novelist)

If you’ve read my novel "And Introducing Dexter Gaines," you’ve probably guessed I have an obsession with ocean liners, with my favorite ship, the SS United States, having a star turn as the maiden voyage setting for a rather significant plot point. This fascination started when I was around eight-years-old thanks to a chance viewing of the 1960 disaster film, "The Last Voyage," which was shot entirely aboard the very real 1920s era French ship, the Ile de France. I thought she was one of the coolest, most beautiful things I’d ever seen. In the ensuing years, I read as many books about passenger ships as I could get my hands on in land-locked Atlanta, and eventually began collecting ocean liner artifacts, furnishings, artwork, and ephemera. Today, like many collectors of a certain age, I’ve now reached the tipping point between curating and hoarding, and while I’m beginning to part with most of my collection, there are a handful of pieces that will have to be pried from my cold dead hands. In particular, item number 419 from the Swann Auction Galleries catalog of Ocean Liner Memorabilia from the Frank O. Braynard Collection, sale 2147, May 22, 2008.

The auction was sanctioned by Braynard’s daughter Noelle, who also happens to be a friend. If you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Braynard and his passion, I suggest you Google him before reading further. In short, he was one of the most highly esteemed ship historians of the 20th or any other century. Although I never had the honor of meeting him, Braynard and I shared a lifelong love of ships in general, and the SS United States in particular, so when the catalog for the sale arrived listing well over 400 artifacts the man himself had deemed worthy, I devoured it, penciling check marks next to the ones that caught my fancy, always on the hunt for something new and noteworthy, drooling over the many color photos of various posters, models, builders plates, and other goodies. I was completely unaware I was about to stumble into a maritime mystery that would take years to solve...