A menu from the last dinner served in 1912 on the Titanic luxury ocean liner, and a pair of license plates attached to John F. Kennedy's limousine when he was assassinated in 1963, both sold at a Texas auction block on November 7, Saturday. The sunken ship's first-class passengers' menu sold for $118,750, while JFK's limo plates earned $100,000 in the auction of political and American collectibles.
The menu was one piece in a rare collection of items retrieved from the RMS Titanic, which sank after hitting an iceberg. Meanwhile, the license plates were from the vehicle that drove JFK around downtown Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22, 1963. Heritage Auctions hosted the event.
Officials of the Dallas-based auction house shared that the Titanic menu is the only known one that exists. It was distributed on April 14, 1912. The menu items included lavish dishes such as oysters, roast duck, fillet mignon (tenderloin steak), Waldorf pudding, and peaches in chartreuse jelly (dessert in a mold).
Today the ingredients of Waldorf pudding are still unknown. It might have contained apples, raisins, and walnuts like Waldorf salad.
The menu includes the addresses of five businessmen who sat at the same table during the ship's last meal. Four survived the Titanic's sinking.
A Western Union distress telegram sent to the Titanic that included the message "Sinking fast" was also included in the auction, according to Reuters. However it could be a copy. The document failed to sell at an opening bid of $20,000.
Meanwhile, the JFK limousine's license plates had been thrown into the trash container of a Cincinnati company that repaired the vehicle. The business' owner William Hess had put them between two books sitting on a shelf, according to The Guardian.
Hess' daughter Jane Walker had inherited the plates, and stored them for decades in a kitchen drawer. The opening bid was $40,000, according to Reuters.
The all-time most expensive Titanic memorabilia ever sold was the violin of bandleader Wallace Hartley, which was reportedly unplayable when discovered in the Atlantic Ocean. It sold for over $1.7 million in October 2013.
Here is a recap of the record-holding Titanic violin: