Found a broader discussion of archive theft here for those interested: http://blog.oup.com/2012/08/difficulty-inside-book-archive-theft-girolamini-library/ http

Found a broader discussion of archive theft here for those interested: http://blog.oup.com/2012/08/difficulty-inside-book-archive-theft-girolamini-library/ http://blog.oup.com/2012/08/difficulty-inside-book-archive-t... The basic challenge for the thief is finding something valuable enough to be worth selling, but not so valuable it's obviously hot. Then make sure there are no records it existed (in this case it appears the catalog didn't include the letters) and find somebody trustworthy to sell it to. I have to agree that the best approach would be to digitize as much as possible, but that might or might not be a tall order for the institutions in question.