The handwritten letter Henry Price Hodges mailed from the Titanic on 10 April 1912 sold for a record £60,000 at Henry Aldridge & Son. Hodges, a second-class passenger bound for Boston, described fine weather and a lively atmosphere aboard—just days before the ship sank. A separate item, a US one-dollar bill recovered from third-class passenger Ernest Tomlin, fetched £37,000; both men died when the Titanic sank on 15 April 1912.
Letter Sent From Titanic Days Before Sinking Fetches Record £60,000 at Auction
The letter was posted in Ireland when the Titanic made her final stop there [PA]
A handwritten letter mailed from the RMS Titanic just days before the ship sank has sold for a record £60,000. The note was written by Henry Price Hodges, a second-class passenger bound for Boston, and was offered by Henry Aldridge & Son of Devizes, Wiltshire.
The Titanic sank in the North Atlantic on 15 April 1912 [PA Media]
The letter, dated 10 April 1912 and postmarked Queenstown (the historical name for Cobh in Ireland), was addressed to Hector Young of the Newtown Conservative Association in Southampton. Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge described the sale as "a record price for an onboard letter written by a second class passenger," noting the poignancy of Hodges's ordinary account of life onboard just days before the disaster.
An "extremely rare" US one dollar bill fetched £37,000 in the same auction [PA]
Hodges wrote: "You do not see anything of the movement of the ship, but the weather is very fine."
He continued: "On the top deck there are about 200 boys (from 20 upwards) marching round and singing, others are playing dominoes & cards in the saloons, some reading, some writing. Everything is quite different to what you would expect to see at sea."
Hodges paid £13 for ticket number 250643. The letter had been estimated to sell for about £35,000 but drew stronger interest at auction, reflecting both its rarity and the emotional power of a personal eyewitness account from the doomed liner.
Also sold at the same auction was an "extremely rare" US one-dollar bill recovered from the body of third-class passenger Ernest Tomlin; the note, which had been sewn into Tomlin's waistcoat, fetched £37,000—nearly four times its pre-sale estimate, according to Aldridge.
Both Henry Price Hodges and Ernest Tomlin perished when the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic on 15 April 1912, a disaster that claimed roughly 1,500 lives. Items like these continue to attract collectors and historians for the personal connections they preserve to one of the 20th century's most famous maritime tragedies.
Auction House: Henry Aldridge & Son, Devizes, Wiltshire
Letter Date: 10 April 1912 (postmarked Queenstown/Cobh)
Final Price: £60,000
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