The only biscuit to have survived the Titanic’s sinking

October 27, 2015 9:44 AM

A cracker that escaped the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 was recently sold at auction for £15,000 ($23,000), making it the most valuable biscuit in the world.
posted by 0bvious (47 comments total)

J. Peterman is kicking himself.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:46 AM on October 27, 2015 [7 favorites]

But can I eat it?
posted by billiebee at 9:49 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Do you have $23,001 handy?
posted by Etrigan at 9:50 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

collectors are so weird
posted by Hoopo at 9:52 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

See, it's just escaped sinking with the Titanic. It would have been impressive if it'd been brought up in a cracker tin from the bottom. As it is, it just shows that some people will hold on to anything.
posted by Mooski at 9:53 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

The most valuable biscuits in the world are the ones they sell at Massac Kountry Kitchen in Paducah, Kentucky, because YUM.

This is a cracker, as the poster notes, more accurately.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:53 AM on October 27, 2015

Well, if you asked me if that was the most the world's most valuable sea biscuit, I would have to say, um, "Nay."
posted by The Bellman at 9:54 AM on October 27, 2015 [15 favorites]

There aren't any more, and there never will be!
posted by zamboni at 9:54 AM on October 27, 2015

What the fuck is this thing? Asking for an American.
posted by swift at 9:56 AM on October 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

Simpsons episode writes itself.
posted by colie at 9:57 AM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

The most valuable biscuit is the one right in front of me.
posted by mazola at 9:58 AM on October 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

I love stuff like this. I mean, I doubt I'd pay money for it even if I had that kind of money, but there's definitely something fascinating about hanging onto something this ephemeral from a situation in which even most of the more durable things were destroyed.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:59 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Correction; I am the most valuable biscuit in the world, but I am not for sale.
posted by ZaneJ. at 10:03 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is a cracker, as the poster notes, more accurately.

Depends where you're from. Said biscuit was baked in the UK, taken from a British ship, and sold at auction in the UK, so the non-US usage of biscuit is perfectly appropriate.
posted by zamboni at 10:06 AM on October 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

The most valuable biscuit is the one right in front of me.

Or: A Biscuit in the Hand is Worth Two on the Titanic.

(or, apparently, $46,000)
posted by Naberius at 10:13 AM on October 27, 2015

Specifically, it's hard tack. The Modern use section of the article is kind of fascinating.
posted by zamboni at 10:16 AM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

recently sold at auction for £15,000 ($23,000), making it the most valuable biscuit in the world.

I don't know -- I bet Seabiscuit's stud fees alone added up to way more than that.
posted by jamjam at 10:16 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Is this a biscuit as in a cookie, or a biscuit as in a cracker? Because if I were rich I would totally be all over spending the money just to eat it, if it's a cookie.

If it's a cracker, what a tremendous waste of money.
posted by Mchelly at 10:19 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

By my calculations you could buy 15463 packets of delicious Jacob's Cream Crackers for that, and probably have funner times than occasionally looking at a relic from a maritime transportation mishap.
posted by sobarel at 10:20 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Okay I finally R the FA. My inner Alistair Cookie is disappointed.
posted by Mchelly at 10:21 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Seabiscuit: I love you, Tobey McGuire.
Tobey: Don't you do that, don't say your good-byes. Not yet, do you understand me?
Seabiscuit: I'm so soggy.
Tobey: Listen, Seabiscuit. You're gonna get out of here, you're gonna go on and you're gonna make lots of crumbs, and you're gonna watch them grow. You're gonna die an old… a stale old cracker in the back of the cupboard, not here, not this night. Not like this, do you understand me?
Seabiscuit: I can't feel my holes.
Tobey: Winning that race, Seabiscuit, was the best thing that ever happened to me... it brought me to you. And I'm thankful for that, Seabiscuit. I'm thankful. You must do me this honor. Promise me you'll survive. That you won't give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless. Promise me now, Seabiscuit, and never let go of that promise.
Seabiscuit: I promise.
Tobey: Never let go.
Seabiscuit: I'll never let go, Tobey. I'll never let go.
Tobey: *glug glug glug*
posted by Kabanos at 10:25 AM on October 27, 2015 [20 favorites]

Depends where you're from. Said biscuit was baked in the UK, taken from a British ship, and sold at auction in the UK, so the non-US usage of biscuit is perfectly appropriate.

Consider my joke murdered, Captain Actually.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:50 AM on October 27, 2015

That is one very, very, very soggy biscuit.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 10:58 AM on October 27, 2015

I hear no mention of what Polly wanted, on this ship, Cap'n...
posted by infini at 10:58 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

So that's why Rose couldn't help Jack onto that wooden-whatever she was on; she was protecting precious baked goods.
posted by bonje at 11:01 AM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Someday this biscuit will put my great grand-daughter through co... well a semester of college. A whole semester, Jack! As I see it, that's worth some sacrifice.
posted by Naberius at 11:03 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

That biscuit saved me in every way that a person can be saved: physically, emotionally, sexually. I don't even have a picture of it. It exists now only in my memory.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:22 AM on October 27, 2015 [7 favorites]

Billy Ray Cyrus in not-the-world's-most-valuable-cracker-after-all shocker.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:23 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

At least 4 or 5 crackers survived the 2006 version of Poseidon, so they're not worth as much.
posted by brundlefly at 11:25 AM on October 27, 2015

This is worth the price only if you could feed it to Paul Hollywood for his commentary. "I'm not going to let you try this, Mary."
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:27 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Shelly Winters survived the Poseidon Adventure and she was a pretty tough cookie.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:29 AM on October 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

Imagine how much the Brits would pay if this were an actual biscuit that you could properly drown in sausage gravy.

Now I'm just sad to think that Britons literally have no word in their language for biscuit.
posted by straight at 12:19 PM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Umm... Shelley Winters died in the Poseidon Adventure.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:43 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have discovered through my extreme laziness/disinterest that even if you never see the movie Titanic (which I haven't) you can still enjoy jokes about being drawn like a French girl and never letting go, Jack.

I assume the movie didn't have a biscuit-related scene or there would already be .gifs relevant to this news being linked.
posted by emjaybee at 1:06 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

It sounds like a lot, but they spent $200 million to make a movie about a cracker that escaped the Titanic.
posted by klangklangston at 1:12 PM on October 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

Ctrl 'f' - "ricochet" ?
Nada.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:32 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Umm... Shelley Winters died in the Poseidon Adventure.

And 25 years later she was still making movies!* That's how tough that cookie was.

*Because what's a biscuit without mmmm ham.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:50 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

£145,000 for tea and a biscuit seems about right for London.
posted by srboisvert at 1:56 PM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

I like biscuits with sausage gravy, but it's somewhat incomprehensible to non-US folks, given it appears to contain no biscuits, sausages, or gravy. I explain it to visitors as scones covered in peppery Bechamel sauce with ground pork.
posted by zamboni at 2:10 PM on October 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

That sounds so classy!
posted by brundlefly at 5:30 PM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

I think I was six or seven years old when I finally broke down and asked Mom why there was no bacon in her bacon powder biscuits.

She got a kick out of it. (For non-U.S. folks, they were bakin' powder biscuits.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:29 PM on October 27, 2015

I really don't understand rich people. Even if you have enough money to bathe in gold coins like Scrooge McDuck, why wouldn't you look at someone asking £15,000 for a biscuit and be all, "LOL no." Worse, because it was an auction rather than an outright sale, that means there was more than one person in the world who didn't just go LOL no.
posted by lollusc at 6:42 PM on October 27, 2015

Would you pay $0.12 for it? Because there are rich people for whom £15,000 is a smaller percentage of their net worth than $0.12 is of mine.
posted by straight at 6:54 PM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Seabiscuit: I'm so soggy.
Tobey: Listen, Seabiscuit. You're gonna get out of here, you're gonna go on and you're gonna make lots of crumbs, and you're gonna watch them grow. You're gonna die an old… a stale old cracker in the back of the cupboard, not here, not this night. Not like this, do you understand me?
Seabiscuit: I can't feel my holes.

I swear to God I tabbed away from this page and came back and there on the page was this exact comment except I thought we were talking about the horse Seabiscuit and suddenly I have the last scene of Titanic playing out in my head except with a horse on a makeshift raft saying "I'm so soggy" and responding to a bizarre soliloquy about not dying a stale old cracker in the back of a cupboard by muttering "I can't feel my holes" because WHY NOT and now I am in tears because I haven't been able to stop laughing for five minutes.

This was SO MUCH BETTER AN ENDING.
posted by mhoye at 7:15 PM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

See, you think you're getting a good deal on that cracker, but then you see what the guy is charging for the only cheese spread that escaped the sinking of the Titanic, and that's how he gets you.
posted by chimpsonfilm at 2:56 PM on October 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Would you pay $0.12 for it? Because there are rich people for whom £15,000 is a smaller percentage of their net worth than $0.12 is of mine.

Okay, but I don't think that's really the point. There is nothing else that I know of that can be bought for 12 cents. It's not even worth donating to charity. But the hypothetical rich person has plenty of alternatives they could spend their £15,000 on and I can't see how any of them could be of less value than a soggy cracker.
posted by lollusc at 7:24 AM on October 29, 2015

But the hypothetical rich person has plenty of alternatives they could spend their £15,000 on and I can't see how any of them could be of less value than a soggy cracker.

"This is just a cracker."
"It's a cracker that was brought up from the Titanic. Do you have any crackers that were brought up from the Titanic?"
"I have a Van Gogh..."
"There are 900 Van Goghs. Are there 900 crackers that were brought up from the Titanic?"
"Goddammit."
posted by Etrigan at 7:27 AM on October 29, 2015 [2 favorites]