I remember the mess with the wax wrappers, gum and boxes. It was discussed here on Net54 as well (beginning in post #139)...
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=162605
Do you have any reason to believe the '79 cello case has has been tampered with? If not, it's his case and he can ask whatever ridiculous price he wants, but I don't think he's going to find a sucker to pay that amount.