some more red meat for all the N54 moralists

[Runscott]

Some of the opinions people have are very enlightening - my eyebrows were raised in surprise during most of the reading! Fortunately Peter brought sanity to the discussion.

It was also interesting to read Dan's story, since this is something that can happen to any of us as collectors. I had a couple of unique items stolen two years ago and played scenarios in my head as to what would happen if I found them on ebay or in an antique store. I finally decided that since they were only worth about $300, I would forget about it and never look at anything on ebay that looked similar to either item - basically, I never want to see them again. They were probably stolen by crackheads who threw them out on the side of the road, as they would look like worthless photographs to such people. But thinking this through made me wonder how safe it is to buy high-dollar items - virtually anything could have been stolen at some point.