| Type | Report, internal |
|---|---|
| Subject | Papers recovered from a purchased bag |
| Items | Nineteen; see Annex A |
| Identification | Partial; disputed in part |
| Status | Adopted; annexes filed |
Tote papers
The following report was adopted by the records committee. Annexes A to C are filed with the minute book and are not reproduced here.
1. Provenance
1.1. The papers were recovered from the Acapulco tote following its purchase from the resale listing described in the entry for the bag. The listing stated that papers had been left inside, without describing them. The seller, asked once in writing, replied that the papers "came with the bag" and did not answer a second enquiry.
1.2. Nineteen items were removed and are inventoried at Annex A in the order of removal: receipts and slips (ten), photographic proofs (eight), and one negative sleeve. Nothing in the bag dates the papers as a group, and nothing establishes that they belonged to one person.
2. The counter slip
2.1. Among the receipts is an order slip from Pfeffer's Lanches, a snack counter at Rio Negro (PR). The slip is printed in Portuguese. The order, two items, is struck through. On the line where a name is taken for collection, the slip carries the name Jacob Fuchs. Nothing marks the order as collected, and nothing on the slip determines whether the name is that of the customer or of an employee.
2.2. The name was checked against the eleven names of the Composite sheet. Two readers disagree on whether the sheet's sixth name reads Fuchs; the photocopy does not settle the point at that line. The disagreement is entered at Annex B without resolution.
3. The proofs
3.1. The eight photographic proofs come from a single session at Coignières. The reverse of each carries the studio's stamp, séance photo, Coignières, and an order form folded among them gives the session type in English as smash the cake, a format in which a first birthday is photographed while the cake is destroyed.
3.2. The eight frames show the cake at eight stages of destruction. No person appears in any frame. The order form carries no client name. The fee is marked paid.
4. The sleeve
4.1. The negative sleeve is marked test3615, in one hand, in ink over pencil. It holds a single negative. The print made from it is filed at Annex C and shows a service counter, empty. One member holds the counter to be that of Pfeffer's Lanches, on the strength of the shape of a menu board whose lettering is not legible. The identification is entered as an opinion.
4.2. It was asked whether Coignières appears in the Appendix of intervals. It does, paired with a commune that no item in the bag refers to, and the figure attached to the pair is 3615. The coincidence with the sleeve marking is recorded. Members are reminded that the marking is in a modern hand, that the appendix states no unit, and that a four-digit figure will coincide with something in any sufficiently large table.
5. Condition
5.1. Three of the receipts are water-stained along one edge. It was proposed that they had at some point passed through the storeroom flooded at the school, as described under the Saint-Maclou-la-Brière flood. The loss inventory of the flood lists no receipts. The proposal is retained only as not excluded.
6. Disposition
6.1. The papers are kept with the tote, in the order in which they were removed, that order being the only one they are known to have had.
6.2. The committee recommends no further enquiry to the seller, one enquiry having gone unanswered, and no attempt to trace the persons named, there being no basis on which to choose among the ways of doing so.
See also
- Route document — Acapulco tote, Appendix of intervals, Composite sheet
- Composite sheet — Appendix of intervals, Composite sheet
- Grusson deposit — Appendix of intervals, Composite sheet
- Misdirected enquiries — Composite sheet
- External ordering — Appendix of intervals
- Herman James — Appendix of intervals
- Kilometre reading — Appendix of intervals
- Odette Pruvost — Composite sheet