Check out this ebay auction

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The seller claims this is a bag from 1882, within a month of the original patent being approved.  Asking price: $46,775.   He says it's in usable condition :) Worth a read if you're into this sort of thing...

That lunacy has been floating around for a few years now.

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The real question is, would you drop a $50,000 pack on a site to "hold" it, while you scouted around for another one??  ;D

wrote on Nov 8^th, 2010 at 4:40pm:

The real question is, would you drop a $50,000 pack on a site to "hold" it, while you scouted around for another one??  ;D

Awesome.   :D

That looks like a museum purchase to me.  Heck, if I owned it I'd consider donating it for a $50k tax receipt.  Perhaps a deal that provides a $10k tax receipt every year for 5 years.

wrote on Nov 8^th, 2010 at 4:40pm:

The real question is, would you drop a $50,000 pack on a site to "hold" it, while you scouted around for another one??  ;D

Yep, that's the first thing that came to my mind as well.

Seems like the age provenance on the piece is pretty weak - seems all based on the Nov 10 1882 stamp on the buckle.

Didn't know you could get a patent in 2 months back then (now its often years).  And he didn't invent the tumpline - that was used by everyone all over the world to carry heavy loads.

Even if there was a period of time that they put Nov on instead of Dec - seems pretty easy to fake.  

Lots of $$ for an old pack. Cool and all, but not $50K cool.

Someone thinks the tump was invented 100 years ago?  That's pretty gullible.  It's been around since pre-history.