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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 DB on
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Here is a cut from the B&W one... Don't know if it adds anything more to the discussion;
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it not changes anything, for me a secretary (the "r" is missing as well the "es" isnt as it should be for an original)
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Guys, calm down ;-)
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Permalink Reply by Lou reves on
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I had three 2 are secretarial by the L theory and this one I believe is 100 percent real its a old one
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that's a nice earlier genuine example in my opinion
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Permalink Reply by Luciano Tedde on
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Luciano, it was me who pointed you out that this is the signature from Raab's publication, I was so happy then that you got exactly this one. And the photograph I well known where it cames from ;-)
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Oh yes you are absolutely right ! I remember when I asked you if the cut signature was genuine. And you answered that yes because it was the same example of the Raab's catalogue !!! And this wonderful photograph is still in my collection !!! :-D
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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on
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We had a few Charlton Heston "Planet of the Apes" photos we sold years ago that also were signed by 1-2 other cast members. We put images of the autographs on the COAs of everything we sold, so we're going to dig into the archives and see what they look like. Hopefully they're OK, but if not, we owe some refunds. Luckily only 2-3.
Steve, I can't thank you enough for bringing these secretarials to light in the US market.
Rolf, thanks for your study showing secretarials in the 1990's. I wish we had known them earlier. Autograph magazine welcomes any information like this, and we would like to share it with the autograph community.
We'll post them subject to peer review at first, which I think you can appreciate.
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Steve, I was always on research for information worldwide, I understand that there may be is a language barriere for americans not to research in Europe, but I shared my information back the days also with some UACC dealers which where called at that time the "authoritys" for authentication. I got a lot of very bad feedback from nearly all of them about my findings about Heston, Belmondo, Michael Landon etc etc. and the only US dealer who agreed me at this time was Caleb Gluck, all others wanted to ignore anything ! This has made me mad about some dealers on the American market and about the UACC overall, cause we (Markus Brandes and me) offered also our help for articles in the UACC magazine and our help has been refused !
Sure, this disscussion is not about the UACC, but as the UACC and some of their prominent dealers act at this time so regardless, I never shared anything again other than with a few peoples I like and I known they are thankfull of such information. One of them is for example Rob Saunders of Arundel Autograph Gallery. He was always one of the dealers who was interested to share opinions and to learn new thing.
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thank you Greg :-)
as I wrote before i realized in the mid 90's how painfull it is sometimes, here is an example of how painfull it really can be ! A Cinema card from Mel Brooks "Silent Movie" on which i got over the years (1991-1995) a total of 8 signatures on it by mail requests (yes I was crazy to send it again and again, I know xD)
It is signed authentically by Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft (she had secretaries on other occassions I got her,, have to add that I believe it was her husband Mel Brooks who signed for her then), Dom De Luise, Ron Carey and what I believe also be genuine Liza Minelli, but Burt Reynolds, Paul Newman and James Caan are only secretaials. believe me that was really pain in the a.. when I became aware about this........
That's my last answer for today, will follow up tomorrow all the new posts in this thread.
Good night all :-)
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