I found Robert's friendly heads-up of an interesting Twain auction and willingness to provide more information to be information that may be useful to the various Twain scholars, collectors, and enthusiasts that might want to own a piece of Twaniana, or even see what a real pre-first-edition or what Twain's handwriting looks like. After all, Sotheby's doesn't make their catalogue public, (it appears that you must be a "member" of their website to even browse it; I wanted to read the poem and see what the book looked like,) and most of us would never know about it otherwise. Thanks, Robert. As for the policy on commercial postings, I might just say "Judge not, lest ye be judged." If buying or selling or even mentioning Twain works has suddenly become evil in this society, (and that would be a surprise, and a shame!) and somehow "prohibited" by an all-powerful moderator, then your commercial advertisements for your own personal book seller in every one of your messages (quoted above) might not be permitted. So caution may be advised, for your own sake. Or, if you want to prove that your heart is in the right place, and that sale or commercial messages of any kind should not be permitted, no matter how un-interested or innocuous they may be, you may wish to remove your commercial solicitiation from your own signature line in further postings. I don't want you to, but it would certainly bolster your moral position from the rather paradoxical state it might now appear to impartial observers. Yours appears to be a commercial solicitation that unambiguously benefits you personally. I don't know if Robert's is. Kevin, if you don't mind, for full, open disclosure, would you state if you were planning on or will you be bidding on either item either personally or through proxy? You don't have to answer, but your strong response to an innocuous message could be interpreted by a skeptical journalist as having alternate interest, one perhaps of keeping the existence of such auction items quiet among those who might bid on them. You may not be interested in them at all. I'm not accusing you of anything; I honestly don't care, other than to make sure that everyone is held to the same standard that you seem to be advocating and that you brought up. I would hardly want to restrain either of you from informing us of important Twain works for sale, or new works like the poem mentioned by Robert; in fact that's why some people are here. None of us want to see vendors post your catalogues here weekly, though. Alan Eliasen