Titanic’s £126,000 letter sale

A LETTER written on the Titanic the day before it sank has sold for a record-breaking £126,000.

The handwritten note, on oversized embossed Titanic stationery, was penned on April 13, 1912, by first class passenger Alexander Oskar Holverson, who intended to post it to his mother in New York.

Mr Holverson, a salesman, was one of more than 1,500 passengers and crew who died when the Titanic struck an iceberg on April 14.

The letter, written on three of four pages, was found in Mr Holverson’s pocket notebook when his body was recovered.

It fetched £126,000 during an auction of Titanic memorabilia at Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire, yesterday.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said he was delighted at the record sale.

He said the letter was “exceptional on several levels, including content, historical context and rarity”.

The letter is one of the last known to have survived the sinking and the last known letter written on board by a victim.

It was received by Mr Holverson’s mother after his body was recovered and remained in the family.

In April 2014, the last letter written on the Titanic sold for a total of £119,000. It was penned by survivors Esther Hart and her daughter Eva, seven, eight hours before the ship sank.

Rusty locker keys from the Titanic that belonged to a cabin steward who survived the disaster were also sold at the auction for £76,000, while two previously unseen photographs of the ship made £24,000.