Yet another bit of Titanic memorabilia has hit the auction block at Henry Aldridge & Son Ltd. in England. The item is a letter from first class passenger Col. Archibald Gracie, one of the few male survivors … unlike John Jacob Astor IV, great-grandson of Astoria’s namesake.

The letter, which was mailed from one of the Titanic’s early stops, Queensland, Ireland, sold for nearly $400,000, according to Smithsonian Magazine. It was expected to fetch about $80,000. Interest in the letter was piqued by a comment on the Titanic: “It is a fine ship,” he mused, “but I shall await my journey’s end before I pass judgment on her.” 

When the engines stopped running just before midnight on April 14, 1912, Gracie went to see what was going on and, realizing the ship was listing, quickly returned to his room to get his life jacket.  

On deck, he helped women and children into lifeboats, then helped crewmembers get out the collapsible lifeboats. Gracie was pulled under the waves during the sinking, but made it to the surface and climbed onto an overturned collapsible lifeboat with several other men, most of whom didn’t survive the freezing night.

The next morning, Gracie and the remaining survivors were picked up by a lifeboat, and then by the rescue ship Carpathia. “The hours that elapsed before we were picked up by the Carpathia were the longest and most terrible that I ever spent,” he told the New York Tribune.

And, he surely did “pass judgement” on the Titanic with his scalding book, “The Truth about the Titanic,” which he started writing soon after he got home. His health badly damaged by his arctic ordeal, he died in December 1912. The book was released in 1913. (Letter photo: Henry Aldridge & Son, Ltd.)