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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 Grant Davis on March 21, 2011 at 1:18am

Cheers Markus

Have looked and will continue to do

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Permalink Reply by Mike Sibley on March 21, 2011 at 1:07am

Grant - the top Mother Lode photo is the 'Chall' secretarial. I have a couple of these that I received from his home address in the early 80's. The bottom signature is a genuine Charlton Heston signature. Hope this help. Mike.

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Permalink Reply by Grant Davis on March 21, 2011 at 1:18am

Thanks Mike, It is still a learning curve

cheers

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Permalink Reply by E.B.G. on March 20, 2011 at 5:05pm

I think the verdict is in. LL is/was a secretary.

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Permalink Reply by Garry King on March 21, 2011 at 5:16am

This has been a fascinating discussion, thanks everyone for the input.

I think t fair to say that most dealers have had a suspicion about these for many years, and many never sold them unless they were from an person source.

Its not hard to see the differences now that someone has taken the time to make the comparisons for us, so i thank you for that. But i still see some who come in with the 'but' and tell some story about where it came from etc.

Very simply put, one rule i have when buying, and i have been making this very clear to any customers or dealers that will listen, is that when considering any item for purchase, its the signature that you must first concentate on, put eveything else out of your mind, especially the story behind it, becuase that is what it very probably is......a story!

If, once you have done your comparisons and all other check, you consider it authentic, then and only then can you involve the story. And all of this must be based firstly on what Markus has said many times, and that is that we must aways assume its a fake to start with. If you stick to those guidlines, you won't buy too many fakes!

As for dealers offering refunds, i think that an dealer worth his salt would refund without even asking you to return it,after all, whats it worth? But as for dealers tracking own buyers, that is a hard task. Having been selling autographs for almost 20 years, it would be impossible, as i did not ven keep records of buyers that long ago! Today, with computors it is a different matter, but how amny of us have lost all our data in a crash or failed hard drive?

This is now the best website around for autograph news, its a shame its as a result of the failure of the magazine, but i suppose thats life. Keep it up.

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Permalink Reply by Drew Totten on March 21, 2011 at 3:41pm

Geez. I now have 2 Heston pieces to line my birdcage with. Great article and discussion... thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Mike Sibley on March 22, 2011 at 5:40am

Good afternoon to you all from a sunny spring day in the UK !

I promised after my last post to show some more of my Charlton Heston signed items and hopefully this will give even more proof to any doubters regarding the TTM Heston signatures being secreterial.

This first set of photos are ones I received from his home address in the 80's and early 90's. They all clearly show the 'Chall' signature. I have around twenty in total, so I can appreciate how collectors are feeling right now as up until I realised the difference between secreterial and in person, I too thought all these were signed by Mr. Heston. I guess, had I been a dishonest individual, I could have made quite some money myself selling these as genuine. However, this is just simply something I just could never and quite catagorically have never done, or ever will. This is why I find it so annoying to see them all over the internet as 'genuine hand signed' etc, etc. Anyway, off my soap box and back to the photos....

The next two photos are signatures that I received through the mail which are genuine hand signed items by Mr. Heston. The first one was a photo I took of him in 1985 in London and sent it to him to be signed via the theatre. The second is an 'Apes' photo sent via the Haymarket theatre in 1999, which I later got signed in person by Linda Harrison. Both clearly show the 'Char' style and the more 'jagged' ES...

The next four photos are genuine Charlton Heston signatures that I have purchased over the years, all which show the 'Char' clearly. One is on a cheque which is fully handwritten, but I thing the best example is on the baseball which is a wonderfull example of the 'Char' style.

Back in 2001 I was seeing countless of what I was beginning to realise were secreterial Heston signatures, being put up for sale on interenet auction sites and other outlets. As I had corresponded with Mr. Heston on and off for 25 year or more, I decided to send him some photocopies of some of the samples up for sale and ask him what he thought of this and to ask him quite carefully regarding if he had a secretary signing for him. I was careful how I worded it as I didn't want to offend him in any way. This is the letter I recieved and it is one of the top items in my collection. I loved his honesty in it and I draw your attention to the last line in paragraph two in which he clealry states that "I have one person who is legally authorized to sign various photos and papers"

You will notice that this has been signed simply 'Ch'. I have learnt over the years that in a lot of his correspondance, if writing to friends he would sign as 'Chuck'. When writing a personal letter to fans on a subject that meant a lot to him, he has used 'Ch'. I'm guessing that he used the 'Ch' on my letter for that reason as opposed to the full signature - I guess I'll never know...

It's been suggested in within these discussions that the person signing for him was his wife Lydia. Lydia Heston was and I'm sure is a very busy person in her own right and I find it hard to believe she would sit down with her husband signing numerous photos and papers etc. Mr. Heston in his autobiography talks of his personal assistant Carol Lanning as the person who organises his public life. Could it have been her?

Finally, the last time I wrote to him was in 2002 asking him a question. He answered it and the letter also had 'Ch' for his signature. He also included the following photo which along with my signed in person as George Taylor in Apes, this is my most treasured. I never expected him to dedicate it, but he did and it is my favourite 'shotgun over the shoulder' photo. A little bit wobbly towards the end of the signature but a lovely example of his signature. This is the only genuine signature I ever received from him via his home address in Coldwater Canyon.

I have added a comparison of the same photo I received TTM which shows the differences between the two signatures once again.

Handsigned TTM signature...

and secreterial TTM...

Please let me know what you think...Many thanks. Mike.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 22, 2011 at 5:51am

Mike - This is simply stunning and serves as the final word to erase any trace of doubt anyone could possibly have. I'm quite envious of the baseball. Unfortunately the ball I received -- and treasured for the past 12 years -- has a secretarial signature. :-(

May I use some of your photos and the letter to update the study on my blog? I will credit you by name of course.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Sibley on March 22, 2011 at 6:03am

Steve - it would be my pleasure to let you use whatever you want to update your blog. If I can help any further, please don't hesitate to get in touch. Glad you like my post. Kindest regards, Mike.