# A time travelers dilemma: where to store vintage documents for hundreds of years **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 29, 2025, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575 "2025-08-29T13:31:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/41 "2025-08-29T19:49:23Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > How about a glass or ceramic jar Ah yeah I think that would work ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/42 "2025-08-29T20:02:59Z")
Perhaps put the glass or ceramic jar in an iron box, to prevent breakage. There are some really beautiful Greek ceramic kraters that have been dug up miraculously intact but probably most such buried items didn’t remain intact. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/43 "2025-08-29T20:09:58Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > How about a glass or ceramic jar? I would avoid glass. Light is bad for preservation. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/44 "2025-08-29T20:15:35Z")
I was not assuming a clear glass jar would be left sitting in the sun. For one thing, it’s hard to imagine it remaining hidden. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/45 "2025-08-29T20:17:44Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > Do you have any idea how much work that would entail? A house that lasts for hundreds of years takes _work_. Imagine being on guard for fires for over two hundred years. Is your time machine a stable loop time machine, or a branching futures time machine? If its a stable loop, then just find an old house where nobody has ever found any valuable documents, and hide them there. You know they’ll be safe, because nobody found 'em yet. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/46 "2025-08-29T20:40:14Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > This was another thing I thought about, if your plan succeeds would anyone believe you if you didn’t do something like this? You have a letter with no provenance that you claim is from Ben Franklin. You could show the paper is from 1700s and the handwriting is consistent, but that is easily fakable (by some definition of “easy”). I don’t think it would be taken seriously. Yeah, explaining the document’s provenance is going to be the hard part. The time traveler would either need to stow it in a house that they know will survive to the present day AND is a place that a letter from Franklin could plausibly have ended up in the past, and hope nobody finds it before they can retrieve it. Or, if the document hails from a in a place and time where scrap paper was routinely used in bookbinding, they could use a version of your stow-it-in-a-book plan: commission a text from a printer with known ties to the author of the document and have them bind it _into_ the book’s cover before donating it to an institution that is likely to keep it intact. (This is, IIRC, what happened with a recently-authenticated letter to William Shakespeare’s wife Anne: one of the clues that it really was written to her and not some other “Mrs. Shakespeare” was that it had been incorporated into a book printed by known Shakespeare associate Richard Field.) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/47 "2025-08-29T20:50:39Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > Yeah, explaining the document’s provenance is going to be the hard part. Easy fix! When you seal up the document, include a Polaroid of Ben Franklin writing it! ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/48 "2025-08-29T21:05:13Z")
You have to have witnesses when the thing is retrieved who can verify that it wasn’t just recently planted. Then you have to have a story as to how you knew it was there in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/49 "2025-08-29T21:07:38Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Then you have to have a story as to how you knew it was there in the first place. “I bought this old barn and was restoring it and _poof_ there it all was! No idea how it all got there. Lucky me!” ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/50 "2025-08-29T21:10:42Z")
Going back to my first post, is there _any_ original Ben Franklin document that would fetch more than, say, _Action Comics_ #1? Why are you wasting your time seeking fortune is the 18th Century when you could just go back to the 1930s? Okay, I guess that’s fighting the hypothetical…but, damn! That would be so much easier and probably use less plutonium. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/51 "2025-08-29T21:12:57Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > “I bought this old barn and was restoring it and _poof_ there it all was! No idea how it all got there. Lucky me!” That’s the kind of talk that instantly draws cries of “forgery!”. Even an authentic Franklin signature can be called fake by experts if the provenance is the least bit fishy. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/52 "2025-08-29T21:15:22Z")
How about an authentic Vermeer painting? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/53 "2025-08-29T21:16:21Z")
Having a solid provenance is ideal but loads of historical items fall through cracks like this (barn finds so-to-speak). Ever watch the TV show “Pawn Stars”? They dealt with this sort of thing a lot and it is interesting how they would try to verify authenticity and determine a price. They were pretty good at it but sometimes got it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/54 "2025-08-29T21:18:47Z")
The time traveler is going to have to sell this thing at auction and an item lacking credible provenance is going to fetch a lot less than one that has it. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/55 "2025-08-29T21:22:44Z")
So, watching the show Pawn Stars, when the provenance is not there, they get experts to validate authenticity. Happens a lot since a solid provenance is often a rare thing to have. I do not know if there is insurance or guarantees if someone shows up later and claims it is theirs and it was stolen (like has happened with art Jews owned and then confiscated by Nazis and later the families reclaim that art…whole other discussion though and not for here). ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/56 "2025-08-29T21:47:40Z")
I mean, if we’re looking for efficient ways to use time travel to make a bucketload of money there are many much easier options. Stock market, lotteries, etc. I don’t think that’s the point of the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/57 "2025-08-29T21:51:35Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > is there _any_ original Ben Franklin document that would fetch more than, say, _Action Comics_ #1? Why are you wasting your time seeking fortune is the 18th Century when you could just go back to the 1930s? Fine. I go back to 1938 and pick up a pristine copy. Where do I take it? Is there a bank that has a location which has not changed, and where I can stash it for 87 years? I’m guessing New York, but what bank should I use? And do I need any sort of id to put it into a vault? Or can I just pay a fee, get a key, then show up nearly a century later? I’d hate to get caught unprepared. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/58 "2025-08-29T22:31:09Z")
There are many banks that existed in 1938 and still exist today. Safe deposit boxes are pretty mundane things. The box I rent costs $50 per year, and the cost is deducted from my bank account. You would open an account in 1938, owned by a trust, and with a balance of, say, $5000, and rent a safe deposit box. You will be able to get access to it in 2025 if you can show that you are a trustee of the trust. You’ll have to set up the trust in 1938 in a way that ensures that you are indeed a trustee in 2025. You don’t even need the key, although having one will save you the cost of having the lock drilled out. The only concern I can think of is there might be some law or bank rule that considers an account abandoned if there is no activity for a certain amount of time. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/59 "2025-08-29T22:52:44Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Is your time machine a stable loop time machine, or a branching futures time machine? If its a stable loop, then just find an old house where nobody has ever found any valuable documents, and hide them there. You know they’ll be safe, because nobody found 'em yet. _As @Moriarty’s timeship dematerializes to return to the future, @Miller ducks out from behind a tree and searches the house for the documents, which he then buries in an abandoned copper mine, not away that he is being surveilled by @Dewey_Finn, who retrieves the documents and seals them in an oilskin pouch with wax and then hides it in a shallow bog, not realizing that he has been followed by…_ Stranger ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/60 "2025-08-29T23:36:42Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > “I bought this old barn and was restoring it and _poof_ there it all was! No idea how it all got there. Lucky me Though add there any candidates for buildings like that? On the East coast of the US. That have been left structurally.intact since the 1750s (structurally intact enough for a stash of papers to survive in the walls) but could be brought relatively cheaply by a private individual in 2025? I think burying is the best bet. “I was digging the foundations for a new barn on my property in rural Virginia and _poof_ I found this old chest. It looks really old I’d love the local university archeology department to help me work out what it is…” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575.md?page=4)