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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 July 22, 2018 at 3:29pm

Certainly not a secretary IMO. The last name is kind of a mess, but I think it's probably okay.

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Permalink Reply by Greg on July 22, 2018 at 4:36pm

Thanks Steve...the last name is indeed a mess, but I think it’s because he simply was running out of room...it certainly has all the typical Heston ‘tells’, just a bit scrunched together...I believe the Charlton is spot on though...here’s the full photo, and quite rare I figure, to get a real signature on a pose such as this!

Attachments: No photo uploads here

1CB0E65B-09A6-48E7-93F2-E72DE17FF6B1.jpeg, 1.6 MB

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on July 22, 2018 at 5:03pm

Hello, here is my 1995 IP Soylent Green VHS label in green ink that may prove useful here. He was only signing books but I waited and waited...and got lucky.

Click for full image:

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on July 22, 2018 at 5:13pm

Very cool, Eric!!!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on July 22, 2018 at 5:58pm

Heston signed photos are much less common than anyone would have imagined a few years ago.

I just did a quick eBay search of the signed photos currently on eBay. By my count, 80 of the first 100 were secretary or malicious fake.

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Permalink Reply by Greg on July 22, 2018 at 6:11pm

Agreed Steve...I still can’t believe the number of secretarials still being offered for sale out there! Obviously they don’t belong to live.autographmagazine.com!

And thanks very much for the comparison Eric, it definitely helps to confirm things! So nice you actually got to meet the man himself!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on July 22, 2018 at 6:07pm

I added these to my collection in the past year or so...

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Permalink Reply by Greg on July 22, 2018 at 6:21pm

Very nice older exemplars!

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Permalink Reply by Todd Johnson on July 22, 2018 at 7:41pm

I reposted this after reading how bad it read when entered from my phone.

Wanted to share my Heston autographs that I have held onto. To me he was the biggest Hollywood name that I had met, at 3 diff occasions in and just outside of the Dallas area, one of those being his one-man play for a number of days, so I saw more than once at that event. My favorite below is The Omega Man vhs, which was my first scary movie as a kid at the next door neighbors on tv while adults played cards. I also have him on a Ducks Unlimited (hunting) baseball type hat.

Later this week I’m picking up a piece being framed, The Omega Man laser disc cover with a book cut of Heston and index of Anthony Zerbe. I’ll post a pic when I get that back.

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Permalink Reply by Rich on July 27, 2018 at 4:48pm

Bought this one when I had the chance - from the late 90s private signing. Where he signed the "Alaska" photos and this image.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on July 27, 2018 at 4:57pm

Yep. I got one of those, too. And the Alaska image. Here is a pic from the signing.

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Permalink Reply by Todd Johnson on August 27, 2018 at 12:05am

My framed pieces took longer than expected but here’s my Heston piece in my favorite movie of his (and first horror type film seen on tv as kid). I do like Will Smith’s movie version of the last man on earth, and have watched Vincent Price in his film.