A menu from the last lunch on the Titanic sold for $340,200 at Christie's on Tuesday afternoon.
The menu, which was the property of first-class passenger Abraham Lincoln Salomon, was carried on his person into Lifeboat No. 1, the fifth boat to launch after the ship hit the iceberg in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912.
Lifeboat No. 1 was famous for only carrying 12 passengers despite having the capacity to hold 40, leaving 70 percent of the lifeboat empty — more than any of the 17 other lifeboats that were used.
The menu first appeared at Lionheart Autographs in 2015, when it sold for $88,000 to Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen.
Allen, for an unknown reason, had the menu heavily restored. When it came back to Christie's this year, the yellowed tape marks were gone, the color was muted and the back had the marks of restoration from rice paper.
Lionheart originally said the the back was signed by a lawyer named Isaac Frauenthal, who was explained as the likely lunch companion of Salomon. That description was transferred over to Christie's. But Kevin Keating, PSA's principal autograph authenticator told cllct before the auction the signature didn't match Frauenthal's passport he found that he signed a month before boarding the Titanic. Christie's changed the description before the auction.
It is more likely Salomon lunched with Frauenthal and was looking to communicate with him when got back home to New York, where both worked. The back of the menu says "I.G. Frauenthal" and notes his address "1493 Bway."
Titanic menus are obviously few and far between. The previous record was the $101,600 paid last year for the dinner menu on April 11, three days earlier than the one that sold Tuesday. But that menu didn't have the story this one did and was not tied to a specific passenger.
With the orders believed to be women and children first into the lifeboats, only 20 percent of the men on the Titanic survived, compared to almost 70 percent of the women and children.
But both men associated with the menu survived, with Frauenthal's story a bit legendary. As Lifeboat No. 5 was being lowered, Frauenthal and his brother Henry, jumped into it, landing on a woman and knocking a 4-year-old unconscious, according to the U.S. Senate inquiry into the ship's sinking.
Earlier this year, the pocket watch of John Jacob Astor, the Titanic's wealthiest passenger, sold for $1.48 million. Astor died that night but his effects were returned to his wife who survived.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectible market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.