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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 March 23, 2011 at 11:52am

The real Hestons often have a significantly curved baseline... "ton" drops down quite often. Secretary is usually relatively straight baseline.

Send me a private message for the other. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 23, 2011 at 12:57pm

Everyone,

Travis is wasting your time. Not that we're the ultimate authority—there isn't one—but Autograph magazine is 100% convinced that the "Chall" variety of Charlton Hestons are secretarials and we recommend that every dealer, auction house and collector treat them as such.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Zarrillo on March 23, 2011 at 7:26am

Travis

When you have a theory that is supported by an overwhelming set of evidence - it still remains a theory and can not be proven as fact until any non-supporting evidence has been disproven and there is no possibility of additional non-supporting evidence. Therefore scientifically it is extremely difficult to prove a case study such as this as acceptable FACT without non-disputable evidence. To my mind the only way this can be done is to locate the secretary, get her to admit to signing as "LL" and indeed as to why this was done. Remember I still have my "theory" that this was done on purpose. I have no doubt that Heston from time to time did indeed sign through the mail - this does not disprove that most of the time he used a secretary. To my mind the nail is not yet in the coffin - but I am not selling any more "aLLs," I am buying as many "arls" as I can, and I am holding on to the "aLLs" that I have in the "deep 6." I am still hoping that the secretary will be brought forward.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 23, 2011 at 10:37am

Since Heston is dead we will never be 100% but in this business 95% & greater is a safe bet.

Then again, after reading between the lines it's apparent that this has been suspect for along time which makes it even more stunning.

I have one "dbl L" brand left - anyone want to make an offer over $29.95 + SH? Don't be shy step up to the plate and put your $$ where your mouth is ~ I'll ensure it will come with a very "reputable" COA.

If there aren't any takers than you still have a chance to buy a PSA/DNA'd one currently on EBAY

actually they have 3 and based on this I am underwhelmed by such egregious errors but to be fair perhaps this was done before Orlando became aware;

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Permalink Reply by Robert Zarrillo on March 23, 2011 at 12:00pm

But we do have Heston's letter that he authorized someone to sign for him - thats as good as gold. We just need to know who that was and their take on why the "LLs"

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 23, 2011 at 10:53am

Geez, I thought my inbox would be full of offers! Then again here is what all this is going to apparently undue so it's not just PSA/DNA...

Kevin Martin, CEO of Piece of the Past Inc, is an established expert in the field of entertainment autographs and memorabilia having spent 24 years in the field and written over 400 articles including the long running column "Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries" in Autograph Collector magazine. He also hosted the longest running autograph show in TV history "Showbiz Collectibles" for six years on home shopping television. In addition, he is the editor of the "Official Price Guide to Autographs" and author of 14 other books on the subject such as "Signatures of the Stars" and "The Autograph Collectors Guide to Autographs." A member of the UACC, IADA, Manuscript Society and Ephemera Society.

and for a mere $695.00 on ebay you too could own this "secretarial"

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 23, 2011 at 11:00am

It would almost be worth buying it, waiting about 3 years, and then asking for a refund based on lifetime guarantee. lol

Boy there has to be a lot of dealers out there now wondering if they'll be swept away by a Tsunami of refund requests.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 23, 2011 at 11:49am

Nope, because there are those, like Rolf's original study, that will claim "holes" in all of this and point to unfortunately places like PSA/DNA or just plain throw their "return verbiage" at them as "not being acceptable" to us.

what is troubling though is the "Through the Mail Thread" out here on AM and how many posts indicate got this, got that.... but I am concerned with the "authenticity" and how do they know.... Or like many will find a thread like this only to become disappointed.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Shinn on March 23, 2011 at 11:51am

DB...

How do you know Joe Orlando is aware of the Heston Study.

Make my day give me some hope.

BTW I had a an encounter with Kevin Martin via e-mail last week over a John Wayne Signature he was selling as authentic, on EBAY, and he was none to happy to hear that the Exemplar he had of Mr. Wayne's signature in his book "The Autograph Collectors Guide to Autographs." was authentic, but that the signature he was selling was a known published example of a Secretarial Wayne signature.

He really got very incensed in his email response to me.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 23, 2011 at 11:58am

'cause I spoke with him a few weeks back. While I will not speak for him nor Steve Grad, I find it hard to believe they have not taken notice in the last week and started to discontinue the stamp on the secretarial ones by updating thier exemplars as JSA did even if they don't come out with some sort of statement. If they continue then so be it - it's there problem and they deserve all the "praise" they receive which would be mostly bad.

Can't wait to see Martin's response then on the one depicted here and how his Heston exemplar has been called into question.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Shinn on March 23, 2011 at 12:26pm

I don't think he reads his own book.

Both the Heston And Wayne Exemplars in his book are authentic,

however he did not use them as reference material on the Heston and Wayne items he is selling on ebay.

BTW the Heston's in his book are the ones PSA/DNA has in their on-line exemplar database. So I don't know who had what first, but both Companies did not use the genuine examples to authenticate the pieces for sale.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 23, 2011 at 2:37pm

what strikes me odd about their representation on their ebay sales is that they offer GAI as an authoratative source (in addition to their own COA) for something that's iisted. While that is not unusual they go on further to state, which is very troubling or indicative of someone who is completely out of touch with the reality of GAI, the following;

In Addition to our COA you will also recieve a COA from GLOBAL, one of Ebays approved 3rd party Authenticators