Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by michelle on April 25, 2018 at 6:24am

my thougth as well pug concerning the charles ray sig.   sinece Janurary 2018, no seller can charge extra if you pay by ccard  and this is why omega have stopped taking ccards.  Most uk auction houses have got round this by increasing their commission.  I also think its short sighted of the auction house, cos I would have won a couple of items had they still been taking ccards so I was the underbidder.  According to the auction house i am the only person who has complained that they no longer take ccards but I wonder.......

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Permalink Reply by marc e on April 25, 2018 at 5:46pm

charge backs and tax invesion

.I had a couple that take cards try to pursued my to do a wire transfer or check or cash 

I bid less on auctions that don't take paypal or amex .its protection and to convient.

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Permalink Reply by Trevor Song on April 25, 2018 at 10:23am

Personally, I would rather have an autographed bible from God than a Ray Charles autograph. Not saying all are fake (I do believe some people have shown some real ones), but the fact is the man couldn't see and it's hard to convince other people about the fact he could sign his name. His signature also looks pretty basic. Basic autographs appear to be too easy for people to forge, but some may argue any signature can be copied if studied enough times.

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Permalink Reply by a pug called eva on April 26, 2018 at 2:12am

Goodcat, I think you are referring to Bob's post rather than Trevor's.

Bob's Ray Charles blog is a fantastic and very scholarly resource so I feel a little uncomfortable in questionning what he says but I also do not know how he can really be so sure that Ray never signed anything. Ray may have said that he never ever signed autographs just to avoid being pestered with requests.

Bob's latest blog entry concerns the signed menu recently offered at RR Auctions and includes a link to this thread:

http://raycharlesvideomuseum.blogspot.ch/

Bob says that the menu and other Charles' autographs that have surfaced recently may have been signed by Ray's valet Duke Wade.

Somehow I have trouble in believing that Duke would have had the fantasy to sign in that way. It is far more likely that he would have signed quite neatly, as in the case of Paul's NME signature - which I can well believe might have been signed by an assistant or at least was signed with assistance. In fact Paul mentions that Pay's hand was placed on the paper.

Even more importantly than the style of the signature, I cannot believe that Duke would have been able to sign the 1962 programme I have in such a similar way - a year later and in Paris. I included a comparison in an earlier post but I'll repeat it here for ease of reference:

New York 1961

Paris 1962

Being a regular forger of my wife's signature (for birthday and Christmas cards, not legal or financial documents), I know how difficult it is to forge very irregular, shaky and almost illegible handwriting. 

I guess a couple of question for Bob would be: 1) was Duke always at Ray's side? 2) Was he definitely at the New York dinner and at the Paris and Birmingham shows?

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Permalink Reply by goodcat on April 26, 2018 at 2:17am

You are correct pug

its funny you should mention that right as I was reviewing my post.

And so I deleted it

But in response to Trevor...

I would say he contradicted himself.

Ray was a real person who could sign for himself, whereas god (any god) has not been proven to be real and could not sign anything

There is enough evidence that shows Ray to have signed things, even if his hand was guided by a bodyguard. And at one time Ray had the ability to see

FURTHER.... If a blind man can play the piano that well, there's no way he couldn't learn how to use a pen, I don't but it for one second.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Canning on April 26, 2018 at 2:46am

I'd read some where his mother taught him how to sign his name. As you say he could play the piano so he could certainly sign his name if he wanted to. It could be he choose not to most of the time. 

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Permalink Reply by Paul Canning on April 26, 2018 at 2:44am

I can only say what I saw and experienced. Phil pointed me in the direction of Bob's blog a while back and its packed full of lots of great stuff but Bob did initially claim that the Birmingham show did not actually happen but I'm glad to see he's now corrected that now as the Birmingham show very much happened and I met Ray and the Raelettes at that show. 

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Permalink Reply by Paul Canning on April 26, 2018 at 2:59am

Thanks goodcat. I can only relay my first hand experience with Ray rather than a 2nd or 3rd hand experience or anecdote, then people can choose to believe me or not. It was actually a big deal for me at the time. Even as a kid I knew Ray was special. I got autographs from every venue in Birmingham over an 18 month period and met many many people and got probably over 2000 autographs. i even got autographs off performers i didn't really like. i was a regular in the audience each week on the TV Show, Thank Your Lucky Stars and was lucky enough to be in the audience for both the Beatles and Rolling Stones first national TV appearance. I also met the Beatles back stage in 1962 at a tiny Birmingham venue. I had a great time through that period and was lucky enough to meet a lot of great performers but Ray was one of the highlights. I also got in to the Lunchbox TV show ATV did quite a few times and met a few stars on that show. A show long since forgotten presented by Noele Gordon. A lot of the venues I knew the back stage layout of also. I remember sitting with Lesley Gore in her dressing room doing autographs for me on her first UK shows. 

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Permalink Reply by goodcat on April 26, 2018 at 3:05am

WOW is all I have in response to that

and thank you for sharing

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Permalink Reply by Bob Stumpel on April 26, 2018 at 4:08am

1) Yes.
2) He was on the payroll from late April 1960 until August 1963.
3) If these were within the time frame sub 2), YES - maybe a bit slower than at other times if he broke his neck, back or left leg that day.

And, even more importantly, if I may repeat myself, Ray Charles was the epitome of a proud, well educated blind man, an extremely keen business man, and a master of Braille, who ALL of his life did EVERYTHING to avoid that anyone perceived him as a disabled person, or as weak in any other sense. It's unthinkable he left a trail of half-a-betic scribbles to please some halfwit signature hunters in the early Sixties, or some mendacious collectors in the first quarter of the 21st century.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Canning on April 26, 2018 at 4:31am

I guess I was one of those halfwits. LOL, but one of the lucky halfwits. I think the halfwit analogy is a bit rude but there you go if it makes you feel happy. All I can do is share my first hand rather than researched experience of meeting Ray. I think your opinion has some logic and I guess its borne out by the few autographs in circulation but to use your analogy (not mine) , only a halfwit can say for sure he never signed anything. 

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Permalink Reply by Bob Stumpel on April 26, 2018 at 4:46am

Don't worry, only the "mendacious" was directed against you.

Stop abusing the internet by burying good information under lies.

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