A letter written by a Titanic passenger just days before the ship sank brought in a record-breaking £300,000 ($400,000).
At a UK auction, the Wiltshire auction house Henry Aldridge and Son, Colonel Archibald Gracie’s letter was bought by an unidentified buyer on Sunday for five times the £60,000 it was predicted to bring in.
The letter, which documents Col. Gracie assuring an associate that he would “await my journey’s end” before making a judgment on the “fine ship,” has been characterized as “prophetic.”
Five days before the Titanic sank after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic, on April 10, 1912, he joined the ship at Southampton.
The letter, written by a first-class passenger from cabin C51, was posted when the ship anchored in Queenstown, Ireland, on April 11, 1912, and it was also postmarked London on April 12.
According to the auctioneer who facilitated the sale, the letter had brought the highest price of any correspondence written onboard the Titanic, and Col. Gracie’s account of the sinking is among the most well-known. He later wrote the book The Truth About The Titanic, recalling his experience on board the doomed ocean liner.
Col. Gracie was one of approximately 2,200 passengers and crew on board the Titanic sailing to New York, and over 1,500 perished in the catastrophe.