A letter written by Titanic passenger Colonel Archibald Gracie just days before the ill-fated ship sank has been sold for a record-breaking £300,000 ($400,000) at an auction in the UK.
The letter, which was purchased by an anonymous buyer at the Henry Aldridge and Son auction house in Wiltshire, far exceeded its expected value of £60,000.
Described as “prophetic,” the letter features Colonel Gracie telling an acquaintance that he would “await my journey’s end” before passing judgment on the “fine ship.” Dated 10 April 1912, the letter was written just as he boarded the Titanic in Southampton, only five days before the ship sank after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Gracie was one of the approximately 2,200 people on board the Titanic, over 1,500 of whom perished in the disaster.
Written from his cabin, C51, the letter was posted when the Titanic docked in Queenstown, Ireland, on 11 April, and was postmarked in London on 12 April. The auctioneer noted that this letter attracted the highest price of any correspondence written aboard the Titanic.
Colonel Gracie is renowned for his first-hand account of the sinking, which he later detailed in his book The Truth About The Titanic. In his account, he describes surviving the sinking by clinging to an overturned lifeboat in the frigid waters. Tragically, more than half of the men who reached the lifeboat died from exhaustion or hypothermia, as Gracie recounted.
Though Gracie survived the disaster, his health was significantly impacted by the hypothermia and injuries he sustained. He fell into a coma on 2 December 1912 and passed away from complications related to diabetes just two days later.
