When the american painter Douglas Gorsline in 1964 had bought a bottle dryer, he wrote to Duchamp to hear if he perchance would sign it for him, Duchamp answered: “In Milan I have just made a contract with Schwarz, authorizing him to make an edition of all my few readymades, including the porte bouteille. I have there­fore pledged myself not to sign anymore readymades to protect this edition. But sig­na­ture or no sig­na­ture, your find has the same ‘metaphysical’ value as any other ready-made, [it] even has the ad­vantage to have no commercial value.”