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Image Source: Henry Aldridge & Son, LTD, via CBS News
The sinking of the HMS Titanic on April 15, 1912, is one of history’s most famous sea disasters. There were not enough lifeboats for all on board, and approximately 1,515 passengers and crew drowned when the ocean liner sank in the frigid North Atlantic.
On September 1, 1985, oceanographer Robert Ballard found the wreck but did not disclose its location as he felt it was a burial ground. Two years later, another exploration company salvaged the wreck and brought approximately 1,800 artifacts out of the ship, including shoes, clothing, and china.
The controversy that followed and the historical interest in the wreck means that Titanic memorabilia and objects are scarce and highly prized by collectors, museums, and historians.
On November 11, 2023, the auction house Henry Aldridge & Son, LTD, will offer a first-class dinner menu from the ship. The menu is dated April 11, 1912, the second night of the ill-fated voyage, after the ship left Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland. The family of a Nova Scotia man who died in 2017 found the menu among his belongings.
Stephenson was a history buff and knew much about the Titanic, but none of his family or friends knew where he acquired the menu. A statement from auctioneer Andrew Aldridge reads, “Having spoken to the leading collectors of Titanic memorabilia globally and consulted with numerous museums with Titanic collections, we can find no other surviving examples of a first class April 11 dinner menu.”
The auction is selling other Titanic items, including a pocket watch and a White Star Line blanket that a survivor used on the RMS Carpathia that came to survivors’ rescue that night.
A pocket watch owned by Titanic victim Sinai Kantor is also part of the upcoming auction. In 2018, the watch sold in an earlier sale for over $57,000. If you’d like to see more Titanic items and what they have sold for at auction, such as this piece of the Titanic hull, check out the WorthPoint Price Guide.
Brenda Kelley Kim lives in the Boston area. She is the author of Sink or Swim: Tales From the Deep End of Everywhere and writes a weekly syndicated column for The Marblehead Weekly News/you’d Media Group. When not writing or walking her snorty pug, Penny, she enjoys yard sales, flea markets, and badminton.
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