Civil War E-Bay Auction

[Nic]

I am by no means a Civil War collector, but I was browsing E-Bay this morning and came across this auction. The red flags for me came up as soon as I saw the photos of the items for sale. Am I totally off base with thinking something is suspect with this group??? Nic.

 

Item number: 230205534434

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/KIA-reports-for-the-Ba...1QQcmdZViewItem

[Lee Ragan]

Can you explain what red flags went up and why?

[Nic]

For me it was a couple of things. The edges of the papers all appear to have the same type of burn marks around the border. The second was the paper quality. I don't see much real aging to them or honest patina. All seem to be in great shape for being "written on the field of battle" and over 145 years old. As I stated in my eariler post, I could be way off in what I am seeing. Also, I'm am by no means saying that these are fakes or that the seller is misrepresenting them, but for me, when I saw them they just didn't seem "right".

[O.G-Palmer]

I have to agree with you to me the edges are to clean and crisp the paper does not look to old either

[ADMIN]

This is the very reason I don't do Civil War stuff. Too much junk.

[Championhilz]

I have collected Civil War Paper items for a number of years, and I can't see anything wrong with that grouping - paper looks good, ink and pencil handwriting looks period, the edges on the various papers do appear to have similar damage, but that's probably because they were folded up and stored together. Civil war paper was generally of very good quality with a high rag content, so it is not uncommon for paper from that era to show few signs of age if it is stored well. After the Civil War cheap paper with a high acid content was introduced, and that stuff does look its age, turns brown and will flake away.