London – Written by one of the ship's most famous survivors, the letter card is on sale at auction for £300,000 ($399,000) just days before its sinking.
In a memo written to the great fugitive of the seller on April 10, 1912, first-class passenger Archibald Gracie wrote of the unfortunate steamship:
The letter was sold to a private collector from the US on Saturday, according to Henry Aldridge and his son of an auction house in Wiltshire, England. The hammer price was well above the initial estimate of £60,000.
The letter is considered to be the only example of existence from the Titanic ship Gracie after attacking an iceberg, sinking from Newfoundland and killing about 1,500 people on the maiden voyage.
Auctioner Andrew Aldridge described it as “an exceptional museum-grade piece.”
Having been able to jump off the boat and scramble into a capsular folding boat, Gracie was rescued by other passengers on a lifeboat and transported to RMS Carpathia. He went on to write “The Truth About the Titanic,” an account of his experience, when he returned to New York City.
Gracie boarded the Titanic in Southampton on April 10, 1912, and was assigned to the first class cabin C51. His book is considered one of the most detailed accounts of events that took place on the night the ship sank, Aldridge said. Gracie did not fully recover from the hypothermia he suffered and died in late 1912 from complications of diabetes.