An attractive ensemble with a letter from the great cellist to the head of the Mannes School of Music, Leopold Mannes. Casals writes in French saying that he has received the $200 but because of the abusively low French franc, he is returning the money and asks Mannes to instead pay the money to Russell Kingman in New Jersey (an amateur cellist who owned a Stradivarius cello).

Matted with an excellent pencilled sketch of Casals, acquired by us in a notebook which belonged to Mishel Piastro, longtime concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. We believe the sketch was executed by Piastro.

At the time of this letter, Casals was living in exile in the south of France because of his opposition to Franco during World War II. The small town of Perpignon, near Prades, was just over the mountains from his beloved Spain and where Casals was to start the famous Prades Festival in 1950.