Hello Hugh,

Nice to hear from you again, and thanks for your input--always valued and appreciated.

I have to 'fess up about my interest in all this, which is to provide an authentic background fabric for what will undoubtedly prove to be a very expensive, museum-quality framing job of BGen James Trudeau's sword belt that I found in a garage in L.A.

(See recent post to Prof Egbert in FL message board)

I don't intend to sell the relic, although have been offered fair amounts for it, but would like to frame it nicely in Confederate gray and hang it in my living room.

Think I can slip my wife a few martinis to get her to agree with this, a la the scene in "Miracle on 34th St" where Mr. Shelhammer plies his wife with martoonis to make her agree to putting up "Santa Claus."

Unfortunately, my wife has already seen through my game, and has dug in her heels on "Hill 256" as we might call this.

But she is very reasonable...Hi dear!...and is my better half by about a factor of magnitude 10. So will see how this all plays out.