[Saco River Auction]

Due to overwelming speculation and debate I have decided to heed the advice of one of my customers(thanks Jay) and have the card examined by a recognized expert in 19th century photography. I have an appointment on January 7th with Paul Messier of Boston who is a world renowned expert in photography and photographic process.

He will inspect the card to determine whether this is a "laser copy". He will also determine if there is the microscopic presence of gold an silver using xray technology and this will give us the absolute answer to all of our questions. He will also provide documentation in support of his scientific findings. I had hoped to put this issue to rest earlier than January 7th, however Mr. Messier is booked until that date. On Monday December 24th I am going to post photos of the SGC slabbed card for all of you who do not believe that it has been authenticated, and this will allow all of you to inspect the work performed so far.

As far as the 99 cent auction speculation, it is true that my seller did put it on ebay and was offered pretty good sums of money to end it. However he is an intelligent man who buys and sells for a living and decided to find out what he had. He then decided to sell the card to his partner. It was his partner who sent it to Leland's for their auction. When the card was returned by leland's the partner requested his money back as it was deemed a fake. My seller gave his partner the money back and mailed me the card for further inspection. I sent the card out not knowing the entire story at the time. I am still very certain that this card is real and SGC has confirmed that. Unfortunately I do not feel comfortable moving forward without getting a second opinion. I respect and appreciate all of the members of this forum and as an auction house we cannot proceed with even an ounce of doubt. In this business your reputation is all you have and it is paramount that all of the questions and rumors are put to rest prior to the sale.

This unfortunately is going to change the timing of the auction for this card. If this card is in fact genuine as we believe, we will have to postpone the auction until March 6 2013. This will allow the scientific process to be completed and adequate time for marketing.

I thank you all for your patience in this process as we all want to know the truth.

Troy Thibodeau
Saco River Auction