Words Before the Iceberg: Rare Titanic Letter Breaks Records
There’s a new auction record for a letter written aboard the Titanic. This one is all the more special because its writer survived—and showed a little prescience.
The sinking of the Titanic still looms large in cultural memory. It holds so much fascination that Titanic memorabilia is a collectible category of its own. Correspondence from the ship’s passengers is especially rare. Henry Aldridge & Son in Wiltshire, UK, offered a letter by Titanic survivor Colonel Archibald Gracie, written during the voyage, in its Auction of Titanic, White Star, Transport and Icons of the 20th Century on April 26. Col. Gracie’s letter, never before offered for sale, shot past its high estimate of £60,000 ($80,600) to sell for £300,000 ($399,000), setting a new record for a letter by a Titanic passenger.
Gracie is considered “one of the highest profile survivors” of the Titanic. He had traveled to Europe on the Oceanic in 1912 and boarded the Titanic as a first-class passenger to return to the United States. On April 14, the night the ship hit the iceberg, he was among the passengers who helped Second Officer Charles Lightoller fill the regular lifeboats and free the collapsible boats stored on the roof of the crew quarters. Collapsible “B” overturned, but Gracie was one of the passengers who clung to it and survived to be rescued by the R.M.S. Carpathia. Once he returned to New York, he began working on a book about his experience that would be published in 1913 as The Truth About the Titanic. Unfortunately, the book was published posthumously; he died of complications from diabetes, exacerbated by hypothermia and injuries from the shipwreck, in December 1912.
The letter, dated April 10th, was addressed to an acquaintance of Gracie’s, the seller’s great-uncle, who received it in London. In the letter, Gracie acknowledged that he was more impressed by the Olympic than the Titanic, saying, “It is a fine ship, but I shall await my journey's end before I pass judgment on her.” Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge called this “the most prophetic line” in a statement released before the auction: "Five days later Titanic was at the bottom of the North Atlantic.” Aldridge called the letter “one of the finest of its type known.”
Henry Aldridge & Son is considered to be the world’s leading auction house for Titanic memorabilia. They have set multiple records for sale prices, including the previous highest price for a letter by a passenger, which sold for $165,776 in 2018. They also hold the auction record for the highest price of any Titanic memorabilia: the violin the bandleader played as the ship sank, which sold for $1.7 million in 2013.
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