Although it didn’t originally meet its reserve at a sale earlier this month at Philip Weiss Auctions, a two-page handwritten letter by a ship’s surgeon on the Titanic met a happier end than the vessel it describes. After the auction, a museum in Ireland called Titanic Belfast raised the funds to meet the $36,000 reserve for the document. Commissions raised the selling price at the Long Island auction house to $40,700.John Edward Simpson, 37 at the time of the sinking, wrote the letter to his mother on White Star Line stationary. His letter was dated April 11, 1912—four days before the disaster. Simpson, who perished, had been hired only on April 6 to care for second and third class passengers.
Read more at Bignews.biz
