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For $50,000, You Can Buy Your Valentine This Victorian Love Letter

American Stamp Dealers Association

There are many ways to send a Valentine's Day greeting in 2014 -- text, email, social media.

But in 1857, there weren't so many.

A passionate love letter from Samuel Eager to Clara Dwight Marsh is being displayed at the Greater Fort Lauderdale/Broward Convention Center.

The Sun Sentinel reports that the tiny letter along with a rare stamp is on display at the American Stamp Dealers Association convention.

Credit American Stamp Dealers Association
The 2-cent St. Louis Carrier stamp that sealed Eager's love note to Marsh.

The 2-cent stamp on the letter is apparently one of only six of its kind that are left.

It’s going for $50,000 at the Convention Center this weekend.

Samuel Eager was from St. Louis. He penned the letter to Clara Dwight Marsh in 1857.

Here's what he wrote:

I am dead in love, I'll flee with thee

By night or day, by land or sea

Then come along, but just to prove the matter

Tie a white ribbon, to your window shutter

Which shall by me be that fair warning

As I pass by, tomorrow morning

In haste,

your Valentine.

Marsh must have enjoyed the poem. According to their marriage certificate, Eager and Marsh married three months later.

Credit American Stamp Dealers Association
There was no texting, emailing, or Tweeting in 1857.

Lib_Congress_song_(for_julia)_01.mp3
"Can You Then Love Another" - E. Berliner’s Gramophone, New York, 1898.

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