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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

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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 Bob Shinn on March 10, 2011 at 3:30pm

The Heston Exemplars from PSA/DNA were published I believe in Kevin Martin's Book

Autograph Collector Celebrity Autograph Authentication Guide: Authentic Examples of Over 1,000 Celebrity Autographs Odyssey Publications (January 25, 2000)

Steve C. can you check this out for me. My copy of that book is at work.

If it turns out to be true, then these genuine examples have been here in reference books since 2000.

Bob Shinn

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Permalink Reply by Rolf Ramseier on March 10, 2011 at 3:41pm

correct Bob, i used them as well from the Kevin Martin book in my study

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Permalink Reply by Robert Zarrillo on March 10, 2011 at 3:50pm

The example in the Martin book does not have the "LL" - but I think Steve elsewhere said that this book was suspect (not with respect to the Heston though - it seems ok to me)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 10, 2011 at 4:02pm

I hope I didn't use "suspect" because that's too harsh a word. There were enough exemplars that the experts I asked questioned that I didn't want collectors to rely on it, especially with our name on it.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Zarrillo on March 10, 2011 at 4:04pm

No just that there were too many that the experts you consulted didnt agree with - but thats enough for me to only use it as a last resort.

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Permalink Reply by Rolf Ramseier on March 10, 2011 at 4:03pm

This is one of the books I always recommend, I for myself learned something from reading and using it for my own studies ! I t may have one or two errors, but nearly all books on the market about autographs have them (Old and new ones).

I just looked into it and realized that the Liza Minelli signature on the "Mel Brooks Silent Movie" card I uploaded somewhere in this thread most maybe is a secretary as well, I wasn't aware that they had published her secretary as well in this book. So thank for pointing out the book so I had a look again and just learned/realized another thing :-)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 10, 2011 at 3:56pm

Bob, do you mean the big yellow book?

When we bought the magazine in 2004 I had the exemplars in the book checked out. A good number didn't pass our experts' opinions, so I recalled the books from the stores and had the entire inventory destroyed. We have a copy or two in storage, but I don't have one where I can get my hands on it, sorry.

Contact PSA president Joe Orlando if you want to know where they stand on this. His email is jorlando@collectors.com.

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Permalink Reply by Rolf Ramseier on March 10, 2011 at 4:05pm

I wonder who this expert was !!!!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 10, 2011 at 4:18pm

Rolf, there was more than one expert and they helped me confidentially. None are active members of this site and one is retired.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Shinn on March 10, 2011 at 4:07pm

Steve, Yes the big yellow book.

I will double check my copy tomorrow when I get back to work.

I agree with you Steve, there were a lot of questionable exemplars there,

but I see Rolf agrees with me on the Heston, so I know I am on the right track.

I will email Joe, but why do you think no one has commented so far from PSA/DNA.

I find it hard to believe they have not heard about this on going discussion by now.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 10, 2011 at 4:35pm

Like I said the first day, please give people a month to respond. That's only reasonable.

I haven't mentioned it to anyone at PSA, and Joe Orlando and Steve Grad say they aren't regular readers of the site. Grad used to be here more and stops by occasionally, but he's not allowed to speak for the company (only Joe is).

If no one's contacted PSA/DNA about the Hestons, they may not know. But I would be surprised if that's the case. Whoever contacted JSA likely contacted PSA/DNA.

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Permalink Reply by Rolf Ramseier on March 11, 2011 at 2:33am

I have browsed for over an hour in this book now and have discovered maybe a few errors, but I think this book is still highly recommended for any library !

Here are a few errors I found :

Janis Joplin, Madonna, Jim Morrison, Paul Newman, Elvis Presley, Robert Redford, Elizabeth Taylor

I do not say they are fake, but those signatures need a double check, otherwise to be honest I did not found many other errors in this short time, in my opinion especially the In Person examples are genuine, sure there are some signatures of mostly lesser known US stars which I am not really aware about their signatures, but all the better names in Hollywood autographs are genuine in my opinion.