A piece of history from the Titanic in an evening dinner menu for first-class passengers is set to go up for auction and is expected to sell for around £60,000.
The menu is from the evening of April 11 1912 and mentioned dishes including oysters, tornados of beef, spring lamb and mallard duck.
The date of the menu would have been after the Titanic left Queenstown in Ireland for New York.
More than 1,500 passengers and crew died when the Titanic struck an iceberg on the evening of April 14 and sank the following day.
Details of Titanic evening dinner menu
The menu is a size of 6.25ins x 4.25ins and bears an embossed red White Star Line burgee.
It would have originally shown gilt lettering depicting the initials OSNC (Ocean Steamship Navigation Company) alongside the lettering RMS Titanic.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: “The latter shows signs of water immersion having been partially erased, the reverse of the menu also clearly displays further evidence of this.
“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.
“Having spoken to the leading collectors of Titanic memorabilia globally and consulted with numerous museums with Titanic collections we can find no other surviving examples of a First-Class April 11 dinner menu.
“The menu is a remarkable survivor from the most famous Ocean liner of all time.”
The menu was discovered in a photo album from the 1960s after the passing of the late Len Stephenson by his daughter and son-in-law.
It will go under the hammer at Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire on Saturday, November 11 and is expected to fetch between £50,000 and £60,000.
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