I ran across a private collection the other day of a fellow who will remain unnamed who bought over 200 WBTS letters for $4,000.00 and with it came along over 300 autographs. The autographs appeared to have come from private letters and historical documents. For example included were Raphael Semmes autograph. It almost looked like someone with a razor knife had cut out the signatures. I've heard of this happening before at various institutions. However I know this man bought them in good faith and would never vandalize history. Yet from time to time such things show up in the market place.

It's one of the reason why I never buy or sell history unless I know for a fact it came from a particular family or area and then I might buy it only to return it to the rightful owners provided it did not set me back in the next tax bracket.