I have a JFK signed letter on Senate stationary, trying to get some input on it's authenticity.

In the early 50's my father was seeking and appointment to West Point, he was from Worchester Mass. His senator at the time was John F Kennedy. He was initially turned down by JFK who had already given out his quota. (that year)

In 1954 he was sponsored by his congressmen instead. But for the next following 3 years he continued to receive letters and information about Kennedy's up coming contests.This was with a packet of many items and documents, one of which I already had authenticated and sold in 2000 to Odyssey autographs.

I am well aware of the numerous secretary signatures, as well as robopens. I never thought JFK would use either for something this prestigious and since each Senator has a very small quota of only being allowed to have 5 appointees at any given time, they usually allocate their chargeable quota at each academy by appointing one candidate per year. That way, there would be four or five cadets at West Point at any one time - usually one in each class, and JKF was very serious about the Military. Anyway I scoured the internet and every book I could find on secretary sigs and robopens, I found none that resembled this one, and found the only one that did resemble it, it was JFK's signature in his book Profiles in courage. I'm simply being diligent and trying to be absolutely sure, although I really dont feel theres an issue, I did take it to a local dealer, who announced after a quick glance that it was a carbon copy because the typing and the signature are both in blue ink. He then still offered me 200.00 bucks for it. hahaha.

 

This letter is on watermarked Senate stationary, one page is the standard size like I have seen with others the second page is much larger, and I have never seen one like that before. I am not an expert authenticator, but common sense goes along way, I looked on the back and can clearly see impressions in several places for the signature, I examined it with a 16x loupe, you can clearly see bleeding on the paper from the ink, unintended pen marks the kind you would expect to see from a signature. And foremost I ran my little finger (its less callous and more sensitive lol) over the signature lightly and can easily feel it raised from ink.


Notice when looking at the reverse side with light behind it, not only can you tell the signature is a different color, but its much darker. Another indication it's a real signature it gets lighter and darker where its suppose to, none of that would be the case if it were a copy. 



I am planning on selling the lot of documents soon, there are also 2 pages of requirements and an example test for the civil service exam that must be passed. I would appreciate any expertise I can get, please feel free to opine also. 
Sincerely,
Glenn

 

 

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    Randy

    Authentic in my opinion. Kennedy did not start using autopens until around 1959 just before his Presidential run and this document pre-dates that time frame. Does not look to be secretarial either so I believe it is authentic although obviously not signed while he was President. 

    Are you selling it yourself or using an auction house?

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    Trevor Song

    In my case, I had my JFK checked out twice (someone reputable and PSA/DNA) and both came back with an opinion as likely genuine.  It's now encased in a PSA protector.  Mine is very different from yours.  One of the things different about mine is that it has a J in cursive - compared to that check mark J he used on many occasions.  

    I don't think there are a lot of experts on here willing to divulge their opinions on JFK.  Lately I've been trying to find an example of mine in the various book studies on JFK, none of which I have.  It's always great to have a documented example IMO.  Not sure if it JFK autograph variants are trade secrets or what, but I have emailed some people who appear to be leads in the field and one person outright refused to help me locate a similar documented example.

    Don't list this on ebay just yet.  I say just get this autograph checked by PSA/DNA first.  I think that's all that will matter in the long run - and more peace of mind that you got it checked by the one of the leading third party authenticator in the market.

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