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Just saw this from a Drudge link:
A 40-year-old intern with the National Archives pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing 164 Civil War documents, including an official announcement of President Lincoln's death, and putting most of them up for sale on eBay.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070404/D8OA0VVG1.htmlThe intern was unpaid according to the story. While I can understand how he would be tempted to do this, it still seems strange given the fact of his age and that he had a Masters. Also, you wonder why he would have thought that he wouldn't get caught. It's not as if there are multiple copies of all this Civil War memorabilia just floating around…
Just saw this from a Drudge link:http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070404/D8OA0VVG1.htmlThe intern was unpaid according to the story. While I can understand how he would be tempted to do this, it still seems strange given the fact of his age and that he had a Masters. Also, you wonder why he would have thought that he wouldn't get caught. It's not as if there are multiple copies of all this Civil War memorabilia just floating around…
People will do anything these days. I think we live in the era known as the Death of Shame. Oh well, I guess he won't have to worry about an academic career now. 🙁
Here is a cached page of what apparently was an item he was selling:http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:C1r6foneG5UJ:www.trocadero.com/dennbks/items/481337/item481337.html+http://www.trocadero.com/dennbks/&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a(names some guy “Adirondack” Murray” — from the Civil War?)The guy had a sweet job….too bad be blew it. I suppose that since he probably was not well off yet surrounded by so many pricey items the temptation was too great. I wonder if he knew that the items he was selling were not cataloged anywhere that they couldn't be recognized as “missing items” from the Archives.
If I was going to buy Antiquarian Books, here is where I would do it:http://www.lesserbooks.com/cgi-bin/lesser/catalogs.html
Nice selection, but one of those places you browse and leave. Wishful thinking I guess.
Some of those documents are only $150.00 for second edition copies. I looked at some of Jonathan Edwards's sermons and those of Charles Chauncy. I love old colonial sermons, they were literary masterpieces in their own right and the foundations of American political and ideological thought.
It's sad when people do this kind of thing. These kinds of items are irrrplacable and should be somewhere where we can all view them.
What I found interesting about the story is how they got so many of the documents back from those who bought them. Perhaps a few buyers bought a lot of them. I wonder if they used any “strong arming” to forcefully tell people to return them.
