The Guardian reports that a letter written by Colonel Archibald Gracie, a survivor of the Titanic disaster, has sold at auction for a record £300,000.
He wrote The Truth About the Titanic, a book in which he described his impressions of the tragedy of April 15, 1912, which claimed the lives of 1,500 people on the way to New York. The letter was written on April 10, 1912, when he boarded the ship. It was sent from Queenstown on April 11 and arrived in London on April 12. In the letter, he wrote: “She is a wonderful ship, but I will wait until my voyage is over before I can express my opinion of her.”
The letter was sold by auction house Henry Aldridge and Son for more than five times the expected £60,000. It is the highest price ever paid for a letter written on the Titanic.
The auction house said that survivor letters of this caliber rarely come up for sale and that this particular example has never been sold.
His accounts are among the most detailed accounts of the Titanic disaster.
The auctioneers added: “It is impossible to overstate the rarity of this lot, written by one of the most famous survivors, with excellent content and on a rare medium – a postcard. This is a truly exceptional piece of museum value.”
