The Ethics of Buy/Sell/Trade and extant artifacts

[jchristiansen]

"In an age of consuming greed it is an unvarnished miracle that the documents were found together, intact; that they were not immediately parcelled out into a hundred separate private collections, taken out of context, and lost to the historical record."

Mr. Webster's comment led to think again about something that has long bothered me.

While it doesn't happen frequently, originals letters do at times appear for sale on this site's Buy, Sell,Trade forum. While I do not wish to restrict anyone's right to sell their personal property, should we, as an organization of historians committed to education and increasing knowledge, place some sort of regulations on such sales on these forums?

For example, I think it would be fair to ask anyone wishing to sell an original letter to post a full transcipt in a folder on this forum, along with some sort of release statement, so that it can be read and used by all for research, personal pleasure, etc. Another option would be an understanding that in order to sell such an item on this forum, a photocopy of the letter be given to an archive, library, or other research collection. I don't think that this would decrease the monetary value of the document at all.

Again, let me be clear: I am not against these sales. But whenever I read "original letter for sale," I'm really curious to know what it says. A lot of members of this community regularly post transcriptions of their findings already.

Mods, if this topic should be a thread of its own, please adjust accordingly.

John Christiansen
PLHA

[1stMaine]

Re: The Ethics of Buy/Sell/Trade and extant artifacts

Comrade,

That sort of stuff reals bothers me as well. Last year, there was a collection of 17 or 18 letters from a Maine soldier to his father. This young man had been wounded, and eventually died of his wounds. The entire set was listed one letter at a time for sale on ebay, and went for far more money than I could personally afford, or else I'd have them myself.

I emailed the individual and asked him if he would consider donating the lot to the Maine State Archives, so that they might be preserved, or at least photocopies of the letters for the same reason.

His response was that if the Archives wanted them then they should bid on them. He was running a business, and he intended to make as much money as possible off of the set, thank you very much. Not his exact words, but I left out a couple of his stronger ones.

It's sad to see our history bought and sold with no records of it ever existing. I will NEVER stand between a man and his right to earn a living. That's as it should be. However, some of these items are beyong mere monetary value, and when they are gone, we are all the lessor for not having access to them.

Respects,