A letters written by one of the best known survivors of Titanic aboard the ship, days before it sinks, it has been sold for $ 399,000 in an auction.
In the note, written in the open uncle of the seller on April 10, 1912, the first -class passenger Archibald Gracie wrote a writing about the scandalous steam: “It is a good ship, but I will wait for my travel ending before I judge him.”
The letter was sold to a private collector from the United States on Saturday, according to the Henry Aldridge & Auction House are in Wiltshire, England. The price of the hammer far exceeded the initial estimated price of 60,000 pounds.
It is believed that the letter is the only example of Gracie from aboard the TitanicHe sank in Newfoundland after hitting an iceberg, killing about 1,500 people on their inaugural trip.
The auctioneer Andrew Aldridge described him as an “exceptional museum grade piece.”
“Not only is it written by one of the most important first -class passengers in Titanic, Colonel Archibald Gracie, [but] The letter of itself contains the most prophetic line: “It is a good ship, but I will wait for the end of my trip before judging it,” Aldridge said in a statement.
Henry Aldridge & Son / AP
Gracie, who jumped from the ship and managed to fight a folding boat overturned, was rescued by other passengers aboard a lifeboat and was tasks of the RMS Carpatia. Then he wrote “The truth about the Titanic”, a story of his experiences, when he returned to New York City.
Gracie approached the Titanic in Southampton on April 10, 1912, and the first class C51 was assigned. His book is seen as one of the most detailed stories of the events of the night when the ship sank, said Aldridge. Gracie did not recover completely from the hypothermia she suffered, and died of diabetes complications at the end of 1912.
The letter was Matascita de Queenstown, Ireland, one of the two stops that the Titanic made before sinking.
Henry Aldridge and then put Titanic articles boxes at auction This month, including a pocket watch and a third class ticket that belongs to two passengers who died in the disaster.
Pocket watches previously owned by Titanic passengers have been sold for large quantities in Henry Aldridge and auctions are before, with a bidder in November that claims one of the themes for $ 2 million. The price of that article had broken a record at the beginning of the year, when the same auction house sold a different gold clock for approximately $ 1.46 million. In that case, the object of 14 carats belonged to the richest passenger in Titanic, John Jacob AstorWhose net assets were around $ 87 million when the disaster occurred in 1912.