A letter from the Titanic ocean liner was sold at a British auction for over $166,000. The letter was written by an Oscar Holverson, a US businessman who was a passenger on the Titanic. He wrote it on April 13, 1912 just before the ship hit the iceberg on April 15th.
It is the only letter, written on Titanic notepaper to have survived the wreck. The auctioneer had estimated that it would sell at between $80,000 and $105,000.
In 2014, another letter which was written hours before the Titanic sank, was sold for $157,000.
Holverson had written the letter to his mother. He described the Titanic as a palatial hotel. He mentions details of how he met a fellow passenger, and one of the richest men in the world at the time, John Jacob Astor. Astor had also perished with the boat. "He looks like any other human being even tho (sic) he has millions of money," he adds. "They sit out on deck with the rest of us."
The auctioneer said that the fact that the letter was written so close to the sinking, and its observations make it an extremely valuable part of Titanic’s memorabilia. Other Titanic items sold in Saturday's auction included a set of keys belonging to a steward in the First Class section, which fetched $100,215 and two previously unpublished photos of the Titanic as it departed from Southampton were sold at $31,650.
Holverson had boarded the ship with his wife Mary. The couple boarded in Southampton and were travelling back to their home in New York. Mary survived the incident, while Holverson did not. The letter was found inside a pocket-book, after Holverson's body was recovered.
"If all goes well we will arrive in New York Wednesday AM," Holverson wrote, of an event that would never come true.
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