Titanic Survivor's Letter Sold For Over Rs 3,00,00,000 At Auction In UK

A letter written by one of the Titanic's best-known survivors has sold for $399,000 (Rs 3.4 crore) at an auction. The letter, which was described as "museum grade" by auction house Henry Aldridge & Son, found a private collector from the US as its new owner in a highly competitive bidding war. The auction house, located in Wiltshire, England, confirmed the sale on Saturday.

The letter, penned by Colonel Archibald Gracie just days before the Titanic sank into the icy waters of the North Atlantic after colliding with an iceberg, was written on April 10, 1912, from Southampton.

Mr Gracie, a first-class passenger, mailed it while the ship was on its way to Queenstown (now Cork), Ireland, one of its two scheduled stops before the catastrophic disaster struck, killing around 1,500 people.

In the letter, Gracie, then 54, expressed his cautious optimism about the ship: "It is a fine ship but I shall await my journey's end before I pass judgment on her," as per The NY Post. Those words would take on a haunting significance just days later, as the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912.

Mr Gracie, who survived the wreck, later recounted his escape in his book, 'The Truth about the Titanic', published posthumously in 1913. After the ship went down, he jumped into the freezing ocean and swam to an overturned collapsible lifeboat. There, he was eventually rescued by other passengers aboard a passing lifeboat.

Despite surviving the wreck, Mr Gracie continued to suffer from the physical effects of hypothermia. His health deteriorated over the following months, and he became the first adult Titanic survivor to die. He died in December 1912, with the cause of death listed as complications from diabetes.

At the time of the Titanic disaster, Mr Gracie was returning to New York after a trip to Europe.

A man of notable heritage, Mr Gracie's father had served as a Confederate officer during the Civil War, and his great-grandfather had built Gracie Mansion, which is still the official residence of New York City's mayor today.

Mr Gracie's last words reportedly were, "We must get them into the boats. We must get them all into the boats."