A lettercard written onboard the Titanic by one of the sinking's best-known survivors has sold at auction for $399,000. In the note, written to the seller's great-uncle on April 10, 1912, first-class passenger Archibald Gracie wrote of the ill-fated steamship on the day he boarded, "It is a fine ship but I shall await my journeys end before I pass judgment on her." The letter is believed to be the sole example in existence from Gracie from the Titanic, the AP reports. The ship sank off Newfoundland three days later after hitting an iceberg, killing about 1,500 people on its maiden voyage. The letter was postmarked Queenstown, Ireland—a seaport town now known as Cobh that was one of two stops the Titanic made.
The letter was sold to a private collector from the US on Saturday, according to auction house Henry Aldridge & Son in Wiltshire, England; the hammer price far exceeded the initial estimate price of 60,000 pounds. Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge described it as an "exceptional museum grade piece." Gracie, who jumped from the ship and managed to scramble onto an overturned collapsible boat, was rescued by other passengers in a lifeboat and was taken to the RMS Carpathia. He went on to write The Truth about the Titanic when he returned to New York City. The book is considered one of the most detailed accounts of the events of the night the ship sank, Aldridge said. Gracie did not fully recover from the hypothermia he suffered, and he died of complications from diabetes in late 1912.
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