"We were very excited. . ."

". . .to see what you brought in to the show today. Where did you get this?

"I bought it at an estate sale."

"And how much did you pay?"

"Not much, a few dollars."

"Well a hundred years ago back at the beginning of the twenty first century, when disks like this could be had for a few pennies, pennies still existed then, digital photos could be stored on disks like this one. This disk happens to have the very best pictures of this noted photographer. Had you ever heard of him before?"

"No I hadn't."

"Well I'm not surprised most of his work was stored digitally and it was one of those pockets of information that was lost during the 'Great Data Conversion' of 2054. Unfortunately we don't have any of his pictures to show but according to accounts his pictures of evening landscapes have the most beautiful colors, like a Parrish painting. The composition and control of contrast in his photos are stunning though the digital screen images lack the punch of his prints. His photos of people from around the world increased their understanding of each other. He was a true master of the art but he rarely printed anything.

Now until recently we had a player for these disks but unfortunately it didn't survive being beamed here from Earth, a few of its atoms got scattered across space.

If you had brought in one of the few surviving prints made by this artist we'd be talking about some serious money right now. The disk does have a few condition issues -"

"We used to play with it as kids, rolling it down the stairs and such."

"OK, unfortunately with no way to actually view the pictures on it it doesn't have much appeal to collectors. What do you think it's worth?"

"Well I, I have no idea I've never had it appraised - er, no one has looked at it. That's why I brought it in."

"OK. Well after consulting with my colleagues, and we had quite a bit of discussion about this, I would estimate it's value to be about the same as the recycle value."

"And that would be?"

"Worthless."

"I'm sorry did you say priceless?"

No, worthless. The disk is authentic and the pictures are certainly stored on the disk but all the value is in the images, not in unviewable binary representations of them. But thanks so much for bringing this in, it was a real treat to see it. Thanks!"