Another major success story was of the trader who secured contracts for 18.1% of the lettering on the monuments, statues and public grounds around London. A large amount of this lettering was worthless, comprising, as it does, hollowed out negatives - embossed parts of the stone or metal to which it is embedded. Of these, there exists a large photographic record which, one day, will serve as record of their contract-holder's predominance on their value. In the case of others, they were metallic, and brazed on to the surfaces of the monuments and buildings. It was here that the resources of the trader proved a boon. Having the corporate ability to collect the metal from the statues, the futures he held on them were swapped out for reserves on various amounts of metal. The money made from this venture was relatively small but the trader was apt at these, small, regular and extreme transactions and kept his operation profitable.
But the dissolution of these metal letters had a disparaging side-effect. For one, on many of the hidden works - in the basements of museums, the attics of hotels or in the depths of alleyways and the obscurer fringes of civic architecture - their identity was eroded. Retrieved artifacts were nameless and untraceable, without extensive research where the only proficient records were in the serves of the New York Stock Exchange. These forgotten works became faceless and soon groups sprang up dedicated to reconstructing the history of these peripheral works.