14 DAY TRIAL // This coming Saturday, October 24, Henry Aldridge and Son will be auctioning off a decades-old photo said to show the very iceberg that hit the Titanic in April 1912.
The auction house says the photo was taken by the Chief Steward of the liner Prinz Adalbert, which passed by the site where the Titanic vanished just hours after the collision and the tragedy that followed.
When the Prinz Adalbert sailed by this iceberg, the demise of the Titanic wasn't even known to the crew. They did notice paint on one of the sides of the massive block of ice, but they didn't think all that much of it.
“One the day after the sinking of the Titanic, the steamer Prinz Adalbert passes the iceberg shown in this photograph. The Titanic disaster was not yet known by us.”
“On one side red paint was plainly visible, which has the appearance of having been made by the scraping of a vessel on the iceberg,” the liner's Chief Steward wrote in a letter that will be auctioned off with the photo.
The photo, shown below, measures precisely 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 centimeters). While not confirmed to actually show the iceberg that hit the Titanic, it is expected that it will sell for $15,000 to $20,000 (about €13,500 to €18,000).
According to historical records, it was on the night of April 14, 1912, at about 11:40 p.m., that the Titanic smashed into the gargantuan iceberg that brought about its demise. The vessel sank on the morning of the following day, April 15.
