A “prophetic” letter written aboard the ill-fated RMS Titanic ocean liner has been auctioned in England for a stunning sum.
The letter was sold by Wiltshire-based Henry Aldridge & Son Ltd. on April 26. It was written by Archibald Gracie IV on April 10, 1912 – just five days before the ship sank on April 15.
Gracie penned the note on April 10, when the ship left Southampton, England. The letter was postmarked in London two days later, on April 12.
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“It is a fine ship but I shall await my journey’s end before I pass judgment on her,” Gracie wrote compellingly in the letter.
“The Oceanic is like an old friend and while she does not possess the elaborate style and varied amusement of this big ship, still her seaworthy qualities and yacht-like appearance make me miss her,” he added.
As noted by Henry Aldridge & Son Ltd, Gracie woke up suddenly before midnight on April 14 when the Titanic hit an iceberg.
“He later wrote that more than half the men who had originally reached the lifeboat either died from exhaustion or cold, quietly slipping off the keel during the night,” the auction house said.
“As dawn broke, Col Gracie returned to New York City aboard the rescue ship Carpathia, where he began writing about what he had been through.”
Though Gracie survived the shipwreck, his health was severely impacted by the disaster.
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He suffered from hypothermia and various physical injuries on the day of the sinking.
In Dec. 1912, he fell into a coma before dying of complications from diabetes.
Originally predicted to fetch the equivalent of $80,000, the 103-year-old piece of paper was sold for an eye-popping 300,000 pounds, or $399,000.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge called the letter “one of the finest of its type known.”
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“Not only is it written by one of the most important first-class passengers on Titanic, [but] the letter itself contains the most prophetic line: ‘It is a fine ship but I shall await my journey’s end before I pass judgment on her,'” Aldridge said.
“Five days later, Titanic was at the bottom of the North Atlantic.”
The auction is proof of the public’s enduring fascination with the Titanic over 110 years after the tragic shipwreck.
In November, a similar postcard from a Titanic victim at another Henry Aldridge & Son Ltd. auction sold for $25,000.
At the same auction, a Tiffany and Co. timepiece given to a Titanic rescuer went for just under $2 million, 10 times more than the original guided price.
Sydney Borchers contributed to this report.
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