Titanic's first-class dinner menu sold for ₹85 lakh at auction

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₹84.6 lakh ($103,000). The first-class dinner menu from the Titanic's ill-fated maiden voyage, offering oysters, beef, and mallard duck was sold at £84,0000 ( equal to ₹84.56 lakh), said a UK auction house responsible for its sale on Sunday. The menu, for a meal served on April 11, 1912, is decorated with a red White Star Line burgee but the original gilt lettering is no longer visible, reported news agency AFP.

The menu, along with other antique and rare items, was sold on Saturday at Henry Aldridge & Son auction house in Wiltshire, southwest England. A ship that has been touted as ‘unsinkable’ sank after hitting an iceberg on the evening of April 14, 1912. The incident led to the tragic demise of more than 1,500 passengers and crew.

The menu "shows signs of water immersion having been partially erased, the reverse of the menu also clearly displays further evidence of this," said auctioneer Andrew Aldridge, reported AFP. "This would point to the menu having been subjected to the icy North Atlantic waters on the morning of April 15 either having left the ship with a survivor who was exposed to those cold sea waters or recovered on the person of one of those lost," he added. The first-class menu is believed to be the only surviving copy of the April 11 dinner menu.

The menu was found in a photo album of late Canadian amateur historian Len Stephenson, reported AFP. The auction also sold other rare items like a Swiss-made pocket watch recovered from passenger Sinai Kantor. The Swiss-made pocket watch was sold for £97,000.