[split] Commissioned or not?

[Anton]

I think Koen kindly split this into a separate thread.

To me that's not 100% certain but definitely would be the first guess. If the VMS was prepared to someone else, this automatically implies one of two things:

a) either the purchaser understood Voynichese
b) or the manuscript is a hoax (to fool the purchaser)

None of these two look to me as simple as just creating the VMS for one's own self (or for collective use of a closed group maybe).