A bright young student entrepreneur was satisfying his work study hours by working part-time at Drew University in the archives. During the course of about five months William John Scott stole letters from the university archives and pilfered them on the internet for thousands of dollars (which was well below their actual worth).

Most of the letters were historical documents that were written by John and Charles Wesley in the 1700’s. The Wesley brothers are best known as being the “fathers of Methodism” and leading a small reform group that eventually grew to become the second largest Protestant denomination in America.  Drew University housed 23 of these Wesley documents and the student had managed to steal 21 of them.

It was not until an antique dealer from England purchased ten of these documents and questioned the manner in which they were shipped to him (FedEx envelope with no sense of preservation for the letters) that the University was tipped off about the possible theft. The dealer, knowing that these letters had to be part of the Drew collection, contacted the University right away and they quickly confirmed ownership.

William John Scott is now being arraigned in court for theft and faces up to ten years in jail, if he is convicted.

Ok.. just to be clear.. I don’t recommend that anyone steal anything from their university and sell it on eBay just to cover your tuition expenses. As you can see from young Mr. Scott’s experience, the outcome can never be good. What you should take away from this article is that your college or university probably has a library archives and you should take an authorized tour to witness some cool pieces of history. Now… if you have old comic books, baseball cards, or other childhood collectibles that are gathering up dust in your parent’s basement, I would recommend listing those on Craigslist or eBay to help offset some of your educational expenses.