According to auction house Henry Aldridge & Son, it’s not clear how the menu was retrieved from the ship, but marks of water damage suggest it was probably recovered from a victim’s body.
The 111-year-old item belonged to historian Len Stephenson of Novia Scotia, Canada, who died in 2017. His family didn’t know he had it in his possession until after his death, when his daughter Mary Anita found it when going through his belongings.
Aldridge said: “About six months ago his daughter and his son-in-law, Allen, felt the time was right to go through his belongings. As they did they found this menu in an old photo album.
“Len was a very well thought-of historian in Nova Scotia which has strong connections with the Titanic. The body recovery ships were from Nova Scotia and so all the victims were taken back there.
“Sadly, Len has taken the secret of how he acquired this menu to the grave with him.”
Stephenson ran a post office during his life, and would chat with customers, write letters for them, and collect old photos, Aldridge said.
He added that no other first-class dinner menus dated April 11 have been found since, meaning this particular one is “a remarkable survivor from the most famous ocean liner of all time”.
Aldridge explained that there are a few April 14 menus around, but “you just don’t see menus from April 11″.
“Most of them would have gone down with the ship, whereas with April 14 menus, passengers would have still had them in their coat and jacket pockets from earlier on that fateful night and still had them when they were taken off the ship.”
The auction house said the menu had sold on November 11, along with a Swiss pocket watch recovered from passenger Sinai Kantor, which sold for £97,000 ($201,000). A tartan deck blanket likely to have been used during the Titanic rescue went for £96,000 ($199,000).
