A lettercard penned on board the Titanic by one of its most well-known survivors, only days before the vessel sank, has been auctioned for 300,000 pounds (about $399,000).
The letter, written by first-class passenger Archibald Gracie on April 10, 1912, was to the great-uncle of the seller. In it, Gracie wrote about the ship: “It is a fine ship but I shall await my journeys end before I pass judgment on her.”
The letter, sold by Henry Aldridge & Son of Wiltshire, England, was bought by a US private collector on Saturday. It went for a much higher price than the pre-sale price of 60,000 pounds.
Take a look at the letter:
Titanic Survivor’s Rare Letter
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge described the letter as an ‘exceptional museum grade piece’. It is the sole known surviving copy of a letter Gracie wrote on board the Titanic, which sank off the coast of Newfoundland after hitting an iceberg, killing around 1,500 people on its maiden voyage.
Gracie had boarded the Titanic in Southampton on 10 April 1912 and remained in first-class cabin C51. After the collision, he jumped into the sea and managed to scramble onto an upturned collapsible boat. He was subsequently rescued by passengers in a lifeboat and brought aboard the R.M.S. Carpathia.
After his rescue, Gracie wrote an account of his terrifying ordeal in the book The Truth about the Titanic, one of the most extensive eyewitness accounts of the tragedy. Gracie never managed to shake the effects of the hypothermia he experienced that evening, though, and died later in 1912 as a result of diabetes complications.
The letter was dated from Queenstown, Ireland, one of the two stops the Titanic had planned to make before it met its unfortunate demise.
