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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.

The Collecting Obsession

Regards,

Steve Zarelli

Tags: Charlton, Forgery, Heston, Secretary, authenticating, autograph, secretarial

2 members like this

Attachments: No photo uploads here

Figure 1.jpg, 60 KB
Secretary 1.jpg, 37 KB

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 17, 2011 at 9:24am

New blog post - PSA/DNA MIA

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Permalink Reply by Dennis on March 17, 2011 at 9:45am

I am sure you guys have a lot of signed checks but this one used to be one of my favorites because of the Christmas theme

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 17, 2011 at 10:00am

That is simply spectacular. I'd love to own that.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 18, 2011 at 3:15pm

Greg, we need to be cognizant when we say "so many" as that is an illusive vague unsubtansiated number. My intell tells me that Hestons are extremely low volume but I have no quantitative numbers to cast a positive or negative with regard to this even though it came from a very reputable undisclosed source.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 18, 2011 at 3:48pm

Greg, as u know, I don't necessarily side with 3rd parties and feel One mistake is not acceptable but it is going to happen but what I feel is not done well is their PR and corrective process. Then again, as we just saw over on the mantle blog corrections are in place just not necessarily public.

p.s. hear that A/Alert you pieces of c r a p that have done such a disservice to the entire industry while hiding behind a website and representative of worms that hide under rocks!

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 18, 2011 at 4:31pm

If the buyer can show it is false he gets a refund. If for any reason within 6 months of purchase a buyer wants a refund they get it. Only 6 months! What kind of a dealer or u :-) Hell, I had one of these freakin "dbl L" brand hestons for ten years - no problem rtn for a full refund...

Unforunately, whether I or anyone else likes it - Publically traded companies seldomly make statements on issues... I wish they would....

and while I agree with you sometimes on the stickers, I just acquired a 1961 Yankee infield signed one and it has the Steiner on it on the right corner. I don't have an issue with it but I do understand why you and others can have issues with such a tactic.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 18, 2011 at 4:22pm

I would think it was relatively low volume for Heston because how many people are going to pay for authentication for what was a $20 - $30 autograph?

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 18, 2011 at 4:46pm

greg, that is 4 out of what population as extrapolated for PAS, JSA, & GAI?

that fundamentally is the problem,,, we can cite some errors but 1. we don't know the total errors and 2. the population on any type of distribution or otherwise.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 18, 2011 at 4:40pm

I concur oh ye great "quacker" but do they have to be so damn dumb and bless more "dbl L" brands at che chicago venue!

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Permalink Reply by Kyle M. on March 17, 2011 at 10:10am

I love this one!

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Permalink Reply by Lou reves on March 17, 2011 at 11:07am

This is what I mean in regards to my earlier post, if he signs all his checks with the R why change it to a L for in the mail stuff? Makes no sense to me so I will just look for R's in the future!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 19, 2011 at 12:03pm

Louie,

I agree with your conclusion, but checks aren't a good gauge on their own. Some celebrities have a signature they use on checks and legal documents and another they use for signing autographs. But outside of one person's experience here (or are there 2? Too many pages to review to check.), Heston hasn't been seen signing "Chall" in person at all. So I'd never trust a "Chall" again.