Overview
- The Henry Aldridge and Son sale in Devizes concluded on Sunday when Henry Price Hodges’s letter from the Titanic sold for £60,000, well above its pre‑sale estimate of up to £35,000.
- Hodges wrote the letter to his friend Hector Young on 10 April 1912, describing fine weather and shipboard life; the item is postmarked Queenstown and linked to Hodges, who died in the sinking and was later buried at Fairview Cemetery in Halifax.
- An extremely rare US one‑dollar bill recovered from third‑class passenger Ernest Tomlin, originally sewn into his waistcoat, also sold at the same auction for £37,000, nearly quadrupling its estimate.
- Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said the £60,000 result sets a record for an onboard letter by a second‑class passenger and reflected bidders’ willingness to pay premiums for items with direct personal provenance.
- The buyer or buyers have not been publicly identified and it is not yet known whether the items will go to a museum, a private collection, or public display; the sales underline continued strong market demand for authenticated Titanic relics.