A life ring from the Edmund Fitzgerald, the famous Great Lakes freighter that was shipwrecked 50 years ago, will be auctioned in Detroit this month.

The orange life ring washed onto the Lake Superior shore after the Fitzgerald sank off the coast of Whitefish Bay on Nov. 10, 1975.

Larry Orr, who was 27 at the time, found it leaning against a tree alongside a plank from one of the Fitzgerald's lifeboats, according to DuMouchelles, the auction house coordinating the sale. Both the life ring and plank likely came from one of the Fitzgerald's lifeboats.

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