A dinner menu from Titanic, dated April 14, 1012 - the day of the tragedy - went under hammer for 76,000 pounds (approximately $120,000), BBC said.
The menu, which offers a choice of 40 options, was on the table of first-class passenger Washington Dodge, a prominent banker from San Francisco. It left in the ship in the purse of his wife, who, along with ther son, survived the shipwreck. It was auctioned by the Henry Aldrige & Son auction house.
The menu, which “gives the reader a fascinating insight into the culinary life of Titanic’s elite passengers,” was sold within the range of pre-auction estimate of 60,000-100,000 pounds. The name of the buyer is unknown.
Another highlight of Saturday’s sale was a set of keys on a ring, bearing a brass tag saying “Lamp-trimmer and Storekeeper.” They were owned by Titanic's lamp-trimmer Samuel Hemming, who received a personal order from Captain Edward J. Smith to ensure all of the lifeboats were provided with lamps.
“The keys themselves played a part in the story as they were actually used in those last desperate hours,” the auction house said on its website.
Though Hemming knew that the ship would sink in about 30 minutes, he travelled several flights of stairs down into the bowels of the ship to the Third Class area to gather the lamps. The man survived and was picked up from ice-cold water along with other survivors.
The keys, “a museum-quality item” with a pre-sale estimate of 50,000-60,000 pounds went under hammer for 59,000 pounds ($94,000).
Henry Aldridge & Son auctioned over 370 lots for the sale to mark the 100th anniversary of Titanic sinking.
The Titanic, with 2,200 people on board, departed from the British port of Southampton on April 10, 1912, for its first and last voyage from Europe to the U.S. On April 14, it struck an iceberg in the Atlantic and sank in the early hours of April 15. At least 1,496 people were killed in the world's greatest maritime tragedy, and some 306 bodies were recovered. Only 706 people were rescued.
