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News Article |
Letter from Titanic passenger sells well |
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By Jim Rutledge
LONDON – A letter retrieved from the pocket of a body found floating in the North Atlantic after the sinking of the luxury ocean liner, the R.M.S. Titanic, has sold at auction for nearly $166,000.
First Class passenger Alexander Oskar Holverson wrote the letter to his mother on April 13, 1912, the day before the Titanic sank after it struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Holverson, a salesman, was returning to New York from a trip to England with his wife Mary. She survived he did not.
The note was handwritten on three pages of the Titanic’s White Star Line embossed stationery. After his body was recovered the letter was given to his mother, according to the British auction house, Henry Aldridge & Son, from Devizes, England, located west of London.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge told the New York Times, the letter was “not in good condition. It had been in the North Atlantic and survived a major disaster, so the fact it’s even there at all is quite incredible. It’s not easy (to read), but it’s readable.”
The auctioneer said the letter was “the most important Titanic letter we have ever auctioned,” because of its content, historical context and rarity.
Holverson wrote, “So far we have had very good weather. If all goes well we will arrive in New York Wednesday A.M.” In the letter he describes a “giant” ship “fitted up like a palacial (sic) hotel. The food and music is excellent.” He commented that while strolling the promenade he saw millionaire John Jacob Astor sitting on the promenade deck – “He looks like any other human being even tho (sic) he has millions of money.”
It was the next day on April 15 that the historic luxury liner hit an iceberg and sank, killing more than 1,500 passengers.
The auctioneers said the correspondence is the last known letter written on board by a victim. Previous Titanic letters sold at auction were posted in Cherbourg, France or Queenstown, Ireland, the ship’s last port of call before the disaster. |
11/22/2017 |
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