Titanic victim's letter sells for record price
A letter written by a passenger a day before Titanic sank was sold at an auction
for $166,000. The handwritten note on embossed Titanic stationery is one of the
last known to have been written on board the doomed liner.
A personal letter written by first-class passenger Alexander Oskar Holverson
on board the Titanic, then the largest ocean liner in service, has sold for the
highest price ever paid for correspondence from the ill-fated ocean liner.
The handwritten letter, found in Holverson's pocket notebook when his body
was recovered, sold at an auction on Saturday for 126,000 pounds ($166,000,
141,000 euros).
The letter is one of the last known to have survived the disaster more than a
century ago. The letter on embossed Titanic stationery still bears saltwater
stains.
Auction house Henry Aldridge & Son, which specializes in Titanic
memorabilia, said the letter was "the most important Titanic letter we have ever
auctioned" because of its content, historical context and rarity.
Poignant letter
In the letter addressed to his mother, Holverson described the Titanic as "a
giant in size and fitted up like a palatial hotel." He also praised its food and
drinks.
"If all goes well we will arrive in New York Wednesday A.M.," Holverson
wrote, a day before the ocean liner struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912 in the
Atlantic while travelling from Southampton, UK to New York. Holverson was among
the 1,500 people who died.
Holverson's wife, Mary Alice, who accompanied him on the journey, survived
the accident.
Minnesota-born Holverson, a salesman, had intended to post the letter to his
mother, who lived in New York.
In the letter he also described his impressions of American financier and
real-estate investor John Jacob Astor, who was one of the world's richest men at
the time.
"John Jacob Astor is on this ship," he said. "He looks like any other human
being even though he has millions of money. They sit out on deck with the rest
of us."
Source: DW
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