The well known magician David Copperfield recently purchased a previously posted about rare audio interview of Martin Luther King, Jr. Copperfield called the tape "priceless", declining to share the actual purchase price.

"Not much amazes me, because of what I do, but to get a discovery like this is just mind-boggling," Copperfield said.

The Manhattan dealer who sold Copperfield the tape said its value was appraised as $100,000. Copperfield intends to donate the tape to the National Civil Rights Museum, which plans to put the original reel on display and allow visitors to hear the full interview.

History professor and head of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute at Stanford University Clayborne Carson said the tape was rare because of the content and nature of the recording (a one-on-one interview), but he also said that he didn't consider the tape to be "valuable as a historical document." He went on to say that he was "suspicious of the story that this was part of a book project" because the interview was so brief (it's only ten minutes long). I wish Professor Carson, or the Chicago Tribune, had elaborated on why he didn't consider the tape to be of historic value since that assessment seems contradictory to his other comments. What do you think?

Magician David Copperfield buys rare Martin Luther King audio tape