Col. Archibald Gracie wrote the letter while traveling on the Titanic days before the ship sank and plunged him into the icy North Atlantic.

The letter, written by first-class passenger Archibald Gracie, sold for five times its expected price at auction. It was written aboard the ship five days before it sank.

A rare letter penned by Colonel Archibald Gracie, one of the Titanic’s most distinguished survivors, has fetched a record £300,000, a fivefold increase on its estimated price, at an auction in Wiltshire,