Commemorative TITANIC cover signed by TITANIC survivor Michel Navratil

autograph

Envelope commemorating 85th anniversary of TITANIC, labeled "official Wessex cover," with the autograph of Michel Navratil. Michel Navratil, age 4 at the time, and his younger brother, age 2, were French survivors of the TITANIC. Their father, Michel Navratil, was travelling in Second Class under a false name because he had taken them from their home in Nice, France without their mother's permission and while a custody dispute was pending. On board, he told other passengers he was a widower. When the ship struck an iceberg, he dressed the children warmly and put them into a lifeboat, while he himself went down with the ship. They became known as the TITANIC Orphans because they were the only children who survived without a parent or guardian. Their mother saw their photograph in a newspaper and came to New York, reuniting with them about a month after the sinking and taking them back to France. Michel Navratil went on to become a philosophy professor. The envelope has a composite image with the ship, the famous newsboy photo, poppies with the saying "lest we forget" and an image of the wreck of the TITANIC. The verso says "official Rembrandt souvenir," with a White Star flag on an anchor and the number 85, and there is a certification that this is autograph 7 of 60. The beautiful stamp is of Saint Columba in a boat; he was an Irish abbot of the 6th century AD who famously sailed to Scotland to convert the population to Christianity.