> What no one could have predicted, however, is that a trial would eventually take place after Esther’s death in which her daughters, Eva and Ruth, would claim

> What no one could have predicted, however, is that a trial would eventually take place after Esther’s death in which her daughters, Eva and Ruth, would claim that no one needs to inventory the materials and that the value of the manuscripts should be determined by their weight – quite literally, by what they weigh. As one of the attorneys representing Hoffe’s estate explained: ‘If we get an agreement, the material will be offered for sale as a single entity, in one package. It will be sold by weight … They’ll say: “There’s a kilogram of papers here, the highest bidder will be able to approach and see what’s there.” The National Library [of Israel] can get in line and make an offer, too.’ That's a very strange auction strategy. You would think that a proper cataloguing would increase the amount you would earn, and it could be done by a hired gun for cheap (since Kafka experts would clamor for access). From a game theory perspective, refusal to disclose contents should, by the 'unraveling' argument, drastically lower the value of the papers to rational bidders since it is a strong indication that the contents are worth a lot less than prospective bidders previously estimated before the refusal (since if the contents were as valuable or more valuable, the owners would have incentive to reveal to ensure the price or raise it; absence of evidence is evidence of absence). One possibility is that they are counting on bidders being irrational and desperate, in which case refusing to disclose keeps valuations irrationally high and exploits the winner's curse; possibly the strategy here is to make the Israeli National Library overpay because it is committed by ethnonationalism to pay whatever price necessary, and revealing the contents risks either public criticism of the National Library overpaying or scaring away other bidders as they learn the papers are boring & losing leverage over the National Library.