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Official Blog of the AALS Section on Contracts

Some things money can’t buy

An odd standoff between the Marxist past and the capitalist present is shaping up over a unique historical artifact:  the ice pick used to assassinate Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940.

The ice pick apparently was abstracted from a police evidence room in the 1940s by a former Mexican secret police commander, whose daughter wants to sell it.  Problem is, it can’t be authenticated unless the bloodstains can be matched with Trotsky’s DNA — and Trotsky’s grandson, who runs a little Marxist museum honoring his grandfather, refuses to cooperate unless the foot-long weapon is given to his museum.

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