[VRWC_minion]

I agree that logically different handwriting would not necessarily indicate fraud one way or the other. In fact, using the "its too good to be true" test one might say that the fact their is a difference indicates lack of fraud because a good fraud would have found a box with no inscription and started with one fresh clean writing.

[Robert A Cook PE]

"... (that there) is a difference indicates lack of fraud because a good fraud would have found a box with no inscription and started with one fresh clean writing.

Good point - One I didn't consider.

Think again of that family photo album you've been keeping for fifty years - received maybe as a heirloom from your grandmother who brought it herself as a treasure from the old country.....

You (personally) KNOW it is a "real" photograph of her dad's wedding picture, or of her grandfather's gravesite .... So there's NO CHANCE "you" are a "forger" of antiques whe nyou re-touch the photo....

All you did was "explain" (in new handwriting) on the photograph WHO "Joquin Smith, My Dear Departed Husband" was on the gravestone..... "Husband of my grandmother, Joanne Minion" .... Or that you took the "old-world" 1880's black&white and re-touched it in a new frame to include with YOUR family's 1965's photo's of other grandparents on your 1990's wall?

So, when the box was re-engraved fifty/150 years later, WHO was more important, and WHY was the relationship SO important to the re-writer that they "desecrated" their family's most important heirloom to engrave (in rock, trying to imitate the original as best they (now illerate ?)) could trace of the unfamilar letters: Jesus, James, or Joseph?