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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 November 11, 2011 at 5:23am

Right... 50% of the people read the study and comply no questions asked. The other half want to debate because "I have been a dealer for XX years and everyone knows he signed through the mail... yada yada yada."

Maddening.

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on November 11, 2011 at 8:04pm

And how about the sellers like Andeepo and PJ's Collectibles who originally took down their "Challs" when Bob Shinn notified them about it and have since listed them again.

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on November 13, 2011 at 3:14am

Something I bet RR would rather forget.

November 2010 -

Description: Glossy 8 x 10 photo of Heston from Planet of the Apes, signed in-person in black felt tip. In very fine condition. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.

Hmm...

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on November 13, 2011 at 3:24pm

RR sold a lot of "Challs" just like everyone else. The thing I found most interested was the "signed in-person" description, which is obviously wasn't, unless it was signed in person by Charlton Heston's secretary. It's so plainly the standard ttm sign. It's hard to claim that photo was ever even touched by Heston in person.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on November 14, 2011 at 6:18am

I need to get cracking on the article for the Pen & Quill. Once it is published in magazine format, I think that will give it more authority than a blog.

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Permalink Reply by DB on November 13, 2011 at 2:56pm

and in my latest calculation on EBay there would be a 70% error ratio on the Hestons within the population just examined. Ya see, those who read this blog there are many of us around that don't disagree on certain matters unless it is carried in a non-professional manner. The percentage could be higher as there were several on the borderline.

now, having said that it would be apparent that when it comes to this particular celebrity and their exemplare they need (and may have) to do a complete 180 as right now I consider psa authentications of this celebrity highly unreliable.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on November 17, 2011 at 4:46pm

Does Spence scan everything? Otherwise, if they just searched on all Heston submissions, how would they know which ones were real real, and which ones were secretary "real" ?

But I agree that it would be nice for the TPAs to put out a general notice that if you return a improperly approved item, you would get a full credit for another free submission or something like that. The positive PR would be a big win, plus it would get a lot of these secretarials off the street.

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on November 17, 2011 at 6:12pm

I think people would rather sell their PSA/JSA authenticated Challs than get their money back on the authentication. I believe a good portion of the sellers that sell them do know they're secretarial. That's why a lot of the Challs that actually sell have been drastically cut in price.

I'd like eBay to take this stuff off, regardless of their trusted authenticators having authenticated them, but to keep it in perspective, they have GA listed as an trusted eBay authenticator and how much of their stuff is good? EBay must not be too considered with authenticity.

It starts and stops with the buyer. No one should depend solely on the opinion of another. They need to do their due diligence and when they don't, they end up with a Chall. Except those folks probably try to sell it on eBay as real so they can dupe another sorry sucker once they find out.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 27, 2011 at 9:31am

I don't think they scan everything, but maybe so. PSA only scans items issued full LOAs as far as I know. I don't think any images are taken of the ones just issued numbered certs.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 27, 2011 at 9:29am

That's the image they show? It looks like JSA certified the item--they certified lots of "Challs". Was it supposedly in a slab or cropped out of a frame?

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Permalink Reply by DB on November 21, 2011 at 2:55am

Does anyone have any examples from the Sanders Guide? Perhaps the last three years 'cause if they are indicating the TTM secretarial is authentic then it is another area that needs to be corrected.

2009 (7th edition) of The Sanders Autograph Price Guide is the claim made on why it is authentic when clearly it's a ttm secretarial.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 27, 2011 at 9:33am

DB,

I don't understand what you mean by this:

2009 (7th edition) of The Sanders Autograph Price Guide is the claim made on why it is authentic when clearly it's a ttm secretarial.

We didn't put exemplars in Sanders 7th edition, because we wanted it to be as compact as possible. I have the earlier ones but they're buried way, way back in storage. Probably next to the Arc of the Covenant.