The ashtray in the picture belonged to Captain Sven Hertzberg, who served as captain of several of VDS’s ships in the period 1936-1955.
Among the ships he captained was the steamship DS Finmarken (1912). When he left the ship to sign on to another, he took a couple of souvenirs with him on the way.
Hertzberg smoked a pipe, and got one of the pole hats from the bridge when he left. He had this cut in two, so that it formed two bowls, and engraved them in memory of his time as captain on board the beautiful DS Finmarken.
“Stolen from “Finmarken” VDS”
He used the two bowls as ashtrays. In addition, he lured a slightly larger container in brass off the ship, in which he kept his pipes for all the years afterwards.
Most of the ship was scrapped in the Netherlands in 1960.
One of the ashtrays is now part of the collection at the Hurtigruten Museum.