A menu from the last dinner served to first-class passengers aboard the Titanic before the doomed ocean liner sank sold to an anonymous bidder for $118,750 at an auction in Texas on Saturday.
The menu was was among a rare collection of surviving items from the Titanic open for bids at the Dallas-based Heritage Auctions’ sale of political and Americana memorabilia, The Guardian reports.
The menu, which was put up for auction by an anonymous collector, is the only one known in existence from the April 14, 1912 dinner, where first-class passengers were served oysters, filet mignon, roast duckling and Waldorf pudding and peaches in chartreuse jelly.
Five businessmen wrote their addresses on the menu while sharing a dinner table the night before the Titanic sank. Four of the five survived the sinking, said the auction house.
Also sold at the auction was a pair of license plates from the limousine that drove President John F Kennedy through downtown Dallas on the day he was assassinated – Nov. 22, 1963.
The license plates had been thrown in the trash at a company in Cincinnati that retrofitted the car after the assassination.
Company owner Willard Hess retrieved the plates and stored them between two books on a shelf.
The plates were inherited by Hess’ daughter Jane Walker, who kept them in a kitchen drawer for decades.
“I was aware of their significance,” she said. “On occasion, I would take them out and show to friends.”
The license plates achieved $100,000 and were also sold to an anonymous bidder.
One item, a recently-discovered distress telegram from Western Union that was sent to the Titanic’s owner in New York, failed to sell at the auction.
“Sinking fast – come to our assistance,” read the message, which the company said never arrived.
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