barry halper forgeries

[benjulmag]

Putting aside the hypocrisy of the person alleging the improprieties, as to the letter press copy (not the original but the era's "carbon copy") with the Hawaiian archives stamp that was purportedly stolen from the Archives, if memory serves me correctly, I think it should be mentioned that the letter was sold by Anne Cartwright, widow of William Cartwright, Alexander Cartwright's great-grandson, to the auction house that auctioned it to the person who later transacted it to Halper. Assuming this is true, then if I had to choose between the letter being stolen, or deaccessioned and returned to its original owner, I would say the latter is more likely. As to the original Knickerbocker baseball referred to in the article, from the perspective of one who was discussing same with Anne Cartwright at the time Halper purchased it, while I had questions whether it was a Knickerbocker baseball, I had no doubt Halper thought it was at the time he purchased it.