Wednesday, October 28, 2015

 Most Expensive Cracker: 'Titanic' cracker breaks Guinness World Records record (VIDEO)

LONDON, UK -- A humble biscuit that survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 was sold at an auction in England for 23,000 U.S. dollars, thus setting the new world record for the Most Expensive Cracker, according to the World Record Academy .

  Photo: A humble biscuit that survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 became the most expensive nibble in the world when it was sold at an auction in England for 23,000 U.S. dollars. Photo: Henry Aldridge & Sons ( enlarge photo )

The Guinness World Records' record for the longest Christmas cracker pulling chain consists of 798 people, achieved by Youth SVP (Ireland) in Waterford, Ireland, on 15 December 2014.

  Guinness World Records also recognized the world record for the largest Christmas cracker pull; it was achieved by 1,478 participants for an event organised by Honda R&D KEN-YU-KAI Tochigi (Japan) at Tochigi Proving Ground, Tochigi, Japan, on 18 October 2009.

    The square-shaped biscuit, made with just flour and water, and just 9 centimeters by 10 centimeters in size, was stored in a survival kit aboard one of the Titanic's lifeboats.

   Ahead of the sale, with an estimate of up to 10,000 pounds (15,300 U.S. dollars), auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said the Spillers and Bakers Pilot cracker biscuit, found inside a lifeboat survival kit, was "the world's most valuable biscuit".

   The biscuit was recovered by James Fenwick who kept as a souvenir. And stored it in a waterproof envelope used for storing camera film.   

    The Fenwick archive, being sold by descendants, is regarded as a unique collection of photographs of the rescue operation, and included that single biscuit.

   More than 700 people were rescued by the Carpathia, but a further 1,500 passengers and crew from the Titanic perished.

   Items from the Fenwick collection were among more than 200 items sold at auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire.

    "We don't know which lifeboat the biscuit came from but there are no other Titanic lifeboat biscuits in existence. It is incredible that this biscuit has survived such a dramatic event."

  "In terms of precedence, a few years ago a biscuit from one of Shackleton's expeditions (to the Antartic) sold for about 3,000 pounds (almost 4,600 U.S. dollars) and there is a biscuit from the Lusitania in a museum in the Republic of Ireland."