S3D Termination of auction - please read

["Dr. George A. Themelis" <DrT-3d@xxxxxxx>]

I have decided to end the eBay auction of the 85 Medium Format
black & white glass stereo transparencies and viewer, mentioned
in an earlier message.  The reason is the following:

I received a message from a sell-3d subscriber, raising the
possibility that these images were lost by (or stolen) from
the family and suggesting that I have enough information to
trace the family and bring these pictures to their attention.
The note ended as follows:

"If you already know from research and letters that the family 
doesn't want the pictures, then I think it would be a good idea 
to mention this in the description on E-Bay, and include copies 
of any relevant correspondence along with the collection in 
order to ease any buyer's concerns."

My response to this is that it is very unlikely that this lot
was stolen and most likely it was sold as part of the belongings
of the deceased photographer.  Most likely, someone from the 
family did not care to keep it.  It is not my job to trace the
origin of these slides to find out if they now changed their 
mind.  I am not destroying this collection. I bought if from
a stereo collector and I am selling it to another stereo
collector.  In many cases these collections are better off in 
the hands of collectors or museums than relatives.  There are
many documented cases of relatives, without any appreciation 
of stereo imaging, throwing away collections of stereo slides.  

If I proceed as it was suggested, what will it be next?
I have a lot of personal Realist format slides in my 
collection, some with enough information to start tracing
relatives.  Boxes of personal Realist slides are being
sold every week in ebay.  Should I make it my mission to 
identify and return these images to the relatives?

In any case, I am ending the auction until I decide what
to do with this lot.  In the meanwhile, I am always
interested in buying Realist-format slides of people,
families, etc. :-)

George Themelis