Money may not buy happiness, but it can buy the Declaration of Independence

Loyal Scaiaholics will recall how much I enjoy wandering into Heritage Auctions in Dallas and poking my nose around artifacts like the Holy Grail and a letter written by John Wilkes Booth where he laments the death of his whiskey flask.

"But Scaia, you dashing ol' so and so," you're crying out at your computer. "Where can I find John Wilkes Booth memorabilia right now?!"

Heritage Auctions is a full-service operation.

Through Saturday, you can participate in their Historic Platinum Signature Auction.

Among items up for bid is a reward poster for the capture of Booth and two of his associates. The poster has a very detailed description of Booth because, as Heritage Auctions' Joe Maddalena explains, this was the 1865 version of you getting an Amber Alert notification on your phone.

He mentions this is another moment in history because another item up for bids is the Declaration of Independence.

If you're enjoying a week off for the Fourth of July and have $3 million burning a hole in your pocket, the Declaration can be yours. It's the second printing of the Declaration and first made in Massachusetts, dating to July 14-16, 1776.

Maddalena dons gloves when he touches the Declaration and says this is the document that laid out, more than 200 years ago, how we would argue with each other about pronouns.

The people signing the Declaration were signing their death warrants. At the time, they had no idea we'd eventually become the global superpower.

You know who else didn't know we'd become the global superpower? George Washington. You can also bid on a letter he wrote to fellow Founding Father George Mason, though they did not refer to each other as "founding father."

From the text of the letter:

We are without money, and have been so for a great length of time; without provision and forage, except what is taken by impress; without cloathing, and shortly shall be (in a manner) without men. In a word we have lived upon expedients till we can live no longer, and it may truly be said that the history of this war, is a history of false hopes and temporary devices, instead of system, and œconomywhich results from it.If we mean to continue our struggles, (and it is to by hoped we shall not relinquish our claims) we must do it upon an entire new plan.

Maddalena says it shows even our first president didn't see a bright future for the country.

You'll notice in the picture where Maddalena's holding the Declaration there's a bar behind him. That's the bar from Cheers, which was actually auctioned off last month.

Some other items up for bid this time around center around pop culture, too.

Marilyn Monroe's first contract can be yours. She's not even Marilyn Monroe, yet. This can show you celebrities are actually real-life mammals who feel ways about things.

Similarly, you can bid on a letter Ringo Starr wrote to his lady friend about joining some no-name group called "The Beatles."

Thomas Mudd also didn't know he'd become famous but for a less uplifting reason. He wrote a letter home from the Titanic and dropped it off at the ship's last stop at a port.

"We have been having very rough weather but the ship is so steady you would hardly know it was moving, was it not for the throbbing of the engines," he really does write.

Maddalena becomes a downer at this point by keeping with the theme of how these items capture a moment in time.

"Hope, that's what that whole journey was about."

The Titanic's voyage may not have had a happy ending, but spoilers: We won the Revolutionary War! Sadly, the auction does not include George Mason's reply to Washington about how it may seem tough now, but hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. I'll keep you posted if Heritage puts anything up for bid from The Shawshank Redemption.