The last lunch menu of the Titanic will be auctioned and is expected to sell for a whopping $50,000 to $70,000. On Sept. 30, Lion Heart Autographs, a known online auctioneer from New York, will put it up together with two other artifacts from Lifeboat 1 that haven't been disclosed before, Associated Press reported.
A passenger who was able to survive the tragedy via a lifeboat dubbed the "Money Boat" was able to save the menu before the ship went into the abyss. The lifeboat was coined as such, according to unverified rumors, when a first-class passenger bribed the boatmen to let the 40-seater lifeboat escape with only 12 passengers.
Abraham Lincoln Salomon was said to be that first-class passenger who was able to keep the artifacts. Another first-class passenger, Isaac Gerald Frauenthal, signed the menu that listed the ship's last lunch, including items such as corned beef and dumplings. The two men were assumed to have shared lunch on that day.
One of the survivors wrote a letter six months after the Titanic went down, and this could sell for $4,000 to $6,000. A ticket issued in the "unsinkable" ship's Turkish baths, which is said to document the person's weight, may rake in up to $7,500 to $10,000, according to Fox Business.
The letter that was written six months after the incident was from Mabel Francatelli to Salomon using New York Plaza hotel stationery. She was able to escape through the same lifeboat with her prominent employers, fashion designer Lucy Duff-Gordon and her husband, Lord Cosmo Duff-Gordon, who was said to be the one who bribed the lifeboat's crew.
Titanic's last lunch menu on auction https://t.co/z8lPgdPjcn #news #World pic.twitter.com/L89qFWsImW
— Indian 24 News (@indian24news) August 31, 2015
"We do hope you have now quite recovered from the terrible experience," Francatelli wrote to Salomon, according to the Guardian. "I am afraid our nerves are still bad, as we had such trouble & anxiety added to our already awful experience by the very unjust inquiry when we arrived in London."
Lion Heart Autographs said the seller is the son of the man that received the artifacts from a descendant of the survivors of Lifeboat 1.
