Pieces of the Scaffold?

[NJREB1863]

You can find offerings of fragments of the scaffold on various CW dealer websites, all seemingly from the same source. All are usually priced, if not at auction, in the several hundred dollar range. Most come framed or just matted with a repro photograph of the execution. These wood fragments are TINY SLIVERS. Although the original note, never available with the fragments, is more than likely authentic, it is certainly possible to sell tiny slivers of wood as originating from the original larger fragment. As tempting as these offerings are, I personally abstain as there are so many spurious items out there as with any highly sought after artifacts.

There is another EBay dealer who seems to have obtained items from the Lattimer auction, Mary Lincoln dress fragments and Peterson House wallpaper fragments. He/she then cuts those fragments into minute pieces and actions them. Another dealer cuts handwritten documents from historical figures into pieces and sells either individual words and sometimes a single letter. I don't know how everyone here feels about these practices, but it really irritates me to see people basically destroying historical artifacts for financial gain.