A postcard written by Titanic’s wireless operator could sell for up to $ 15,000

A postcard written by Titanic’s wireless operator could sell for up to $ 15,000

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Written by Shirin Ali, CNN

A postcard written by a crew member of the RMS Titanic a few weeks before it sank is up for auction and could fetch $ 15,000.

Jack Phillips, the vessel’s senior wireless operator, wrote the postcard to his sister, Elsie, in March 1912 while in the harbor at Belfast, Ireland, where the Titanic was built. The construction work was completed at the end of March and it left the dock on April 2, 1912.

The correspondence, written on a 5.5-inch by 3.5-inch postcard, contains an image of the Titanic during its construction and is postmarked in Belfast.

The card reads in part: “Very busy working late. Hope to leave on Monday and arrive soton (Southampton) on Wednesday afternoon. Hope you are quite OK.”

The message ends with the words “Love, Jack.”

The postcard contains an image of the Titanic in Belfast.

The postcard contains an image of the Titanic in Belfast. Credit: Thanks to RR Auction

“Phillips often chose postcards depicting the ship he served on,” said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of the RR auction in Boston, which sells the card.

“According to our research, only five of the 300 postcards Elsie retains had any relationship with Titanic, and only two displayed the ship as the leading photo, making it an extremely rare example,” Livingston said in a statement. .

Livingston says Phillips is a forgotten hero who saved many lives when the Titanic began to sink. Phillips worked tirelessly to send messages to other ships to enlist their help in rescuing the passengers and crew.

On the night of April 14, 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Titanic hit an iceberg that would have killed more than 1,500 passengers and crew. According to RR Auction, Phillips, 25, left the ship while water flooded his feet. He ended up on an inverted, collapsible lifeboat, where he would die from a severe cold.

The auction of Phillips’ postcard will end on April 14. RR Auction says the postcard is estimated to cost $ 15,000.

This is not the first sale of remnants of the Titanic. In 2015, a premium lunch menu of the luxury ship was sold at auction for $ 88,000, along with a letter to a man who allegedly bribed the crew of a lifeboat to row off the ship instead. than saving more people for $ 7,500.

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