We are an eBay affiliate and may be compensated for clicks on links that result in purchases.

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

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rolf Ramseier on March 9, 2011 at 11:43am

damn, does you guys on here do not click on links I posted already....... ;-)

http://www.isitreal.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlin...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rolf Ramseier on March 9, 2011 at 12:31pm

haha :-) I like your sense of humor DB

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 9, 2011 at 12:27pm

There are tons of authentic Stewarts out there, but I'll bet you're right, that there are no secretarials. But there are a lot of forgeries and it would be nice to identify them for collectors, too.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 9, 2011 at 11:56am

Blog update:

http://zipper68.blogspot.com/2011/03/james-spence-authentication-js...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by DB on March 9, 2011 at 12:05pm

Good Stuff - the wave is growing. Hat's off to the "Zipper" and especially Rolf who got the ball rolling... Sometimes one's work takes time to engrain.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 9, 2011 at 12:16pm

Zipper, Rolf...great work!

And a big thumbs-up to JSA and all the others responding to the findings.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rolf Ramseier on March 9, 2011 at 12:25pm

Nice to see, but why the hell those "authenticators" do not have done her homework in recent years........they do nothing else than authenticate, I do spent most of my time selling stuff, do you see the difference.......

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 9, 2011 at 12:40pm

Greg,

This shows how important it is to buy from a reputable seller with a lifetime money-back guarantee of authenticity. Third party authenticators do not guarantee authenticity.

Interestingly, I've heard rumors that an authentication company may be coming online that does guarantee authenticity at the value submitted. They charge a percentage of the submitted value. If that happens, I assume that other existing authenticators will follow suit and offer a guarantee as an option.