Handwritten Letter by Titanic Passenger Sells for Five Times Expected Price?Why It Fetched 600 Million Won

A Letter Written Five Days Before the Titanic Sank
Sold for Five Times the Expected Price
Believed to Have Been Written by a First-Class Passenger

A handwritten letter by a passenger who boarded the Titanic in April 1912 has been sold at a record price at a UK auction. On April 27 (local time), international media outlets including AP and BBC reported that a letter written by Army Colonel Archibald Gracie, a survivor of the Titanic disaster, was auctioned to an anonymous buyer for 300,000 pounds (approximately 570 million won) at Henry Aldridge and Son Auction House in Wiltshire, England. This price is about five times higher than the expected price of 60,000 pounds. The auction house stated that this letter set the highest price ever recorded for any letter written on the Titanic.

Letter written by Colonel Archibald Gracie five days before the sinking of the Titanic. Henry Aldridge and Son Auction House

The letter has been confirmed to have been written by Colonel Gracie on April 10, 1912, the day he boarded the Titanic in Southampton, England. This was five days before the Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic. Gracie, who was a first-class passenger, wrote the letter in cabin C51. The letter was sent when the ship docked in Queenstown, Ireland, on April 11, and it was postmarked in London, England, on April 12. According to the auction house, the recipient of the letter was the great-grandfather of the seller.

In the letter, Gracie wrote, "This ship is excellent, but I will reserve my judgment until the end of the voyage." Comparing the Titanic to the 'Oceanic,' a ship he had previously sailed on, he noted, "The Titanic is splendid and offers a variety of amusements, but because of its performance at sea and its yacht-like appearance, I miss the Oceanic." His restrained praise for the Titanic?a massive ocean liner acclaimed as the 'world's largest and finest'?has been described as 'prophetic.' At that time, the Titanic was en route to New York with about 2,200 passengers and crew on board, and the sinking resulted in the deaths of approximately 1,500 people.

Letter written by Colonel Archibald Gracie five days before the sinking of the Titanic. Henry Aldridge and Son Auction House

After surviving, Gracie published "The Truth about the Titanic." He managed to survive by climbing onto an overturned lifeboat in the middle of the icy sea. However, he later suffered from injuries and hypothermia, fell into a coma on December 2, 1912, and died two days later due to complications from diabetes.