When Vistafjord became Caronia in Dec 1999 it was 'decided' that all the presentation plagues collected over the years she had been Vistafjord would be 'disposed of' by auction to the passengers on the final Vistafjord cruise. I was charged with collecting them all and, together with the Cruise Staff, organising the Auction.
'Sadly' some of the rarer plaques somehow got 'lost' in transit between the Fwd stairs and the Grand Lounge!!!
My favourite story is of the American gentleman who paid a rather large amount of US$ for a turtle shell mounted on a plague, i can't remember where it came from or why and by whom it was presented, anyway he and another gentleman were in fierce competition for this and he eventually outbid his rival and secured his 'prize'!
During dry docking in Bremerhaven for the 'transfiguration' into Caronia, the ship was contacted by S'ton Cunard Office as this gentleman had been stopped and searched on returning to the USA and had been heavily fined and had the shell confiscated as it was from an endangered species under CITES.
As such, he had complained to Cunard that he shouldn't have been 'sold' the shell as they should have know in was illegal to 'sell' something of it's type!
As the Cruise Director was not on for Dry Dock, i was 'summoned' to see the Captain and explain things.
Cunard S'ton were informed of what happened and that was the end of things. What Cunard said to the Gentleman i have no idea, but we never heard anything further about the incident.
FYI the 'Auction' raised a tidy sum for Seaman's Charities, but sadly was an early sign of the 'Ethnic cleansing' that was in it's early stages, at this point, to cleanse Cunard of any links to either NAL or Royal Viking.
