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Authenticity is Everything
Charlton Heston Secretarial Signature Study
Hi:
At Steve Cyrkin's invitation, I'd like to call your attention to a signature study I've posted on my blog, Charlton Heston signature study by Steve Zarelli.
I believe I have identified the "tell" in Charlton Heston secretarial signatures, and if I am correct, the news is not good for most collectors. It appears that most Heston signed photos are secretarially signed.
Here is a synopsis:
The Theory
Photographs and other memorabilia sent to Mr. Heston's office were signed by a secretary. However, Mr. Heston did authentically sign books through-the-mail.
Real vs. Secretary
In authentic signatures, the R in "Charlton" is distinctly a lowercase "r" and less than half the height of the L. The first four letters are clearly "Char."
In secretarial signatures, the R looks much more like a lowercase "l" and is about the same height as the L. So, the first four letters appear to be "Chall."
I have attached two images to give you a small sampling.
For more details and images, please visit my blog at the link below.
I'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts on this. I fully anticipate some resistance to the theory, because denial is always the first step. In fact, I would love to be proved wrong, because that would mean I wasn't sitting on a bunch of secretary signed photos!
By way of introduction, I have been collecting since the early 90s and I am the UACC Ethics Director.
I look forward to the discussion.
Regards,
Steve Zarelli
Tags: Charlton, Forgery, Heston, Secretary, authenticating, autograph, secretarial
- Attachments: No photo uploads here
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Figure 1.jpg, 60 KB -
Secretary 1.jpg, 37 KB
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on
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Why do you think so? Is there a study available?
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Permalink Reply by Grant Davis on
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Sigh,
Another SP that gets taken down!!!!
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Permalink Reply by Rolf Ramseier on
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I am glad and thankfull the Charlton Heston mysterious has finally reached the americans. Very few of you may be aware of the studys I published about Hestons secretaries in Swiss and German collector magazines some years ago when he was still alive. Those study's are published on www.isitreal.com as well, but as they are written in German many may now known them. I was back in the 80/90's a by mail collector and wrote several times to Heston always thought they where genuine. But in 1997 I meet an old Lady in Germany who told me all my Hestons where fakes. At first point I did not believe her, cause other long time collectors told me Hestons by mail are genuine, but I never forgot the old Lady and had an eye on Hestons after that. I then sent a small Q&A letter to Heston about his signing habits and oh wonder I got an answer and this was the first time I realized they are differents to the other signatures I got before by mail. Heston was so kind and answered the Q&A letter personally ! This was the only time I ever got a real Heston by mail.
I can fully agree with Zippers Theory, for me important was also always the "es" in Heston which is not really written by his secretatries, but always on his real graphs. I was attacked over the years by some big dealers from all over the world about my findings, but I was always sure I am correct. So thanks Zipper to finally bring it in to disscussion on here.
Best regards,
Rolf Ramseier / Isitreal.com
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direct link to the study's on Isitreal.com
http://www.isitreal.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlin...
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My brain is now on work to sort out my own memories with Charlton Heston's signature mistery.
I was an active by mail collector from 1986-1997 and in this time period I got several autographs by mail from Mr. Heston, I still own most of them cause I collected them on small movie collector cards from a German magazine and I do still have all those card in my collection. About 20 of them are signed by Mr.Heston's secretary.
In 1994 I sent the Q&A to Mr. Heston, but at this point I did not realized what a special item I then got. The Q&A can be found under this link at the end of the article : http://www.isitreal.com/images/Heston%20Studie.jpg
In about 1996 or 1997 I meet the old Lady at a Cinema Fair in Munich and she told me all my Heston's where fake, I know I have talked a bit to her, but she was not able to proof anything, but she left my table very angry, that's I know for sure. Therefore she was always in my memories.
In 1995/96 I was a subscriber of Mike Johnson's "Autograph Research" at this point the only collector I known who had written about secretarial autographs of contemporary stars in his publications, with his findigs I realized the first time that not all that was sent out by the stars is genuine. He published a study about Clint Eastwood then and I was shocked at this point that my very first autograph I ever got by mail was a secretary, my Clint Eastwood I got in 1986....
This has opened my eyes and in the future I began to study signatures much closer. In the 90's I had published studys about several stars in the Swiss Autograph Collector magazine and from about 2000 in the German publication "Der Autographensammler" (http://www.autograph-club.org/).
My first study about Heston was in about 1998/99 in one of my printed catalogues and at about the same time in the Swiss magazine. At this time it was really really hard to find 100% genuine examples and I hadn't much examples and my conclusion then was that the "es" in Heston is the key to the secretaries.
I only had a few books with genuine examples and asked all my In Person contacts then, but most of them have never got Heston, cause they all believed Heston's by mail are genuine, so the price was very cheap and not worth the time to get him In Person. A great mistake !!!
In my 2003 article for the German publication "Der Autographensammler" I first pointed out the difference of the "r" in Charlton (after my friend Luciano T. told me this), but at this point for me the main point to detect the sercatries was still the "es" in Heston. With the new findings of Steve Zarelli I can say I may was not absolutly correct with the "es" but this is still is one of the differences of secretaries and genuine examples which is in most cases true.
Over the recent years I also realized that may be most of the books sent to him have genuine signatures, but as Steve Zarelli wrote, not all are genuine.
Best, Rolf Ramseier / Isitreal.com
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Hi Rolf:
Yes, it was your study that I saw some time last year that started me on my own investigation. I allude to it in the 4th paragraph of my article. As I stated, I thought you were onto something, but in my view, the "es" formation you focused on just wasn't consistent enough to be 100% convincing. But it was a great start and I thank you for the inspiration. :-)
regards - Steve
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Hi Mike:
I agree that probably 95% of TTM signatures for contemporary and/or highly popular celebrities are fakes. Anyone who thinks that a busy celebrity like John Travolta or Al Pacino or Sarah Palin is sitting around spending hours and hours signing thousands of mail requests per week is delusional. It's just not realistic.
That said, I think the school of thought is that there is a much better chance of an authentic response from less popular and/or older celebrities. They have more time and don't have the same volume of requests. Charlton Heston used to fall into that category and now it appears he does not (although, he was signing books from all evidence).
We need to be careful not to paint with too broad a brush. Certainly some TTM signatures are authentic. I wouldn't make an assumption on James Stewart unless there was some evidence. With Stewart, I have not identified any differences in TTM signatures and in-person signatures and documents. However, I could always be wrong and would like to see analysis if it exists.
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I agree as well that a large percentage of by mail signatures are secretatrial, I got this eveidence for me back in the 90's and stopped my own by mail activities in 1997 because of this.
And i can backup Steve's comment that the chances getting an authentic autograph from old stars are much better than form the youngers in the business, at least it was at the time I was an active by mail collector from 1986-1997.
But I have also to add, that got some real graphs back the days from some big stars as Harrison Ford, Anthony Hopkins, Stephen King, Juliette Lewis, Sam Neill and many many more.
From others like Cyd Charisse, Gene Kelly and Walter Matthau I got genuine ones as well as secretarials through my mail requests.
Rolf
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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on
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Al Pacino actually did sign some of his mail, but most is secretarial. The secretarials are easy to identify—they look good! Pacino's a gracious signer in person, but his autograph is generally lousy whether he signs for a crowd or at home.
If you ever see an attractive Pacino you can identify be extra cautious. They're probably less than 1/200.
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the secretarial ones are the full al pacino in a black marker , in person thats all he signs is al or just an A.
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Pacino has signed in full in recent years as well, one of the In Person collectors I know for some time told me he got several Pacino graphs when he was in Venice/Italy one or two years ago, mostly Pacino signed only his sloppy A or what an A should be, but on very few occassions he has given full signatures as well.
Here is an example from the early 90's with a full signature, it was given to the doorman of a Hotel
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Rolf,
I meant to comment on this great autograph earlier. Larry Grobel did a piece for us on Pacino in September 2006, and two scripts Al signed for him are very similar to this. Larry has known Pacino since the 70s or 80s, and Al signed for him many times.
Pacino would be a great signature study to do. Thanks for posting this classic Pacino.
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