‘Prophetic’ letter written by Titanic survivor sells for nearly $400,000 at auction
When first-class passenger Col. Archibald Gracie boarded the Titanic in Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912, he drafted a letter to a friend.
“It is a fine ship,” he wrote, “but I shall await my journey’s end before I pass judgment on her.”
Five days later, the “unsinkable” ship struck an iceberg and sank in the frigid waters off Newfoundland, killing some 1,500 of the vessel’s roughly 2,200 passengers.
Now, Gracie’s eerily prescient letter has sold at auction to an anonymous bidder for a record-breaking $399,000 — nearly five times its expected price. The auction took place on Saturday in Devizes, England.
Andrew Aldridge of Henry Aldridge & Son, the auction house that oversaw the sale of the letter, told NPR he believed the note was so highly prized largely because of Gracie’s “incredible” sentence about withholding judgment before the ship’s journey ended.
Aldridge, an auctioneer who specializes in the valuation of Titanic memorabilia, added that the sale was testament to the public’s continued interest in the famous shipwreck.
“The stories of those men, women and children are told through the memorabilia, and their memories are kept alive through those items,” Aldridge said in an email.
In 2013, the auction house also sold a violin believed to have been played by bandleader Wallace Hartley as the ship sank.
The instrument sold for over $1.6 million, setting a record for Titanic-related artifacts at the time.
Col. Archibald Gracie, a wealthy American real estate investor, managed to survive the sinking by climbing onto an overturned collapsible lifeboat with around a dozen other men, according to the auction house.
He went on to write The Truth About the Titanic, a personal account of how the disaster unfolded. According to Gracie, around half the men who reached the lifeboat died from exhaustion or extreme cold.
Despite surviving the tragedy, Gracie died less than eight months later due to health issues exacerbated by hypothermia and physical injuries sustained from the shipwreck, according to the auction house.
The letter left the ship when it made a stop in Queenstown, Ireland, before embarking across the Atlantic. The seller’s great-uncle was an acquaintance of Gracie’s, who received the letter at the Waldorf Hotel in London on April 12, 1912 — three days before the ship sank.
Shooting outside Jewish museum raises questions about shifts in political violence
If the suspect in the recent D.C. case planned to kill people because of their Jewish faith, this would represent a major anomaly in lethal, antisemitic violence.
Peruvian farmer loses landmark climate case against German energy giant
A Peruvian farmer has lost a decade-long legal climate case against Germany energy giant RWE. Saúl Luciano Lliuya claimed the company's emissions had contributed to glacial melt threatening his Andean hometown.
GOP’s budget package proposes to cut benefits and raise fees for legal immigrants
The goal of the changes, which head to the Senate next week, is to save money and send a signal that Republicans are tough on immigration.
China is now the biggest debt collector in the developing world, report says
Developing countries owe billions to China, which threatens to undermine poverty reduction efforts and fuel instability, according to a new report from Australia's Lowy Institute.
After CDC cuts, doctors fear women will lose access to contraception research
A small team of researchers responsible for keeping clinicians up to date on contraception research has been cut. Doctors say they rely on the team's guidance when advising women about contraception.
Greetings from the Galápagos Islands, where the blue-footed booby shows its colors
Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR's international correspondents share snapshots of moments from their lives and work around the world.
