Letter from REH to Wilfred B. Talman, September 1931
This letter appeared on eBay for sale around April 2023 and is a known letter (The Collected Letters of REH v2: 1930-1932 #175) It appears to be original and signed by Howard. It’s part of a collection and according to scholar Patrice Louinet the previous unknown letter looked perfectly legit. The Talman letters are privately owned. The punch holes come from the fact that Talman kept the letters in a binder. The seller claims that his client bought these letters from L. W. Curry approximately around 2007 and owns several more. The seller also claims to have sold 2 letters in the last 6 months (I’m writing this 14th of April, 2023).
In the letter Howard thanks Talman for sending a letter to Street & Smith. Howard tells Talman a lot of his life, growing up in West Texas.
Just to make it clear; I have nothing to do with the sale or the letter. The seller contacted me through my FB page telling me about it.
The history of some or several other letters is sketchy. A guy named Randy Everts apparently stole the letters from Talman. Prior to that Talman evidently made copies of the letters to Glenn Lord, which is why we know the letters exist. The letters were most likely sold to L. W. Currey, some or all. Later the REH letters were resold, but so far we know nothing about this. There probably are not many Talman letters we don’t know about.
As for the punch holes; Talman’s correspondence was in binders as he was very organized.
Source:
eBay listing. It was listed at US $7.900 by johpolizo-0.
Information from Patrice Louinet regarding the history/ownership of the letters and punch holes.