Quote:
|
Originally Posted by HerenIstarion
M-m, strange thought just occurred to me, following lal's post above... what happens inext - will e-mails count as letters, and will they have any monetary value? I do have some from David Brin (true, what that correspondence consists of is mainly [polite] quarreling, but still...). Suppose Mr. Brin grows on to become truly good writer, gets the Nobel Prize ... prospective income, or what?
|
I'd say with an e-mail its the intellectual material, i.e. the content which is valuable. Whereas with a letter there is a sense that 'the great man' (for example, not discounting Ms Austen's letters
) actually held and crafted the item.
I suppose that with letters there is less chance of forgery too, although as has already been said, modern techniques make this more and more likely! This is where provenance would come in as of vital importance, which I beleive is the case with 'signed' books.