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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 Scott Cornish on April 1, 2011 at 7:13am

Great work Steve (and Rolf)!

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Permalink Reply by Rich on April 5, 2011 at 7:17am

Thank you very much for this study, and for the great input from Rolf and others who have contributed to this thread. I bought a Charlton Heston/Kim Hunter signed Planet of the Apes photo in 2008 from Autograph World. The Heston signature looks consistant with the secretarial examples. Not sure what to make of the Hunter now!

While I appreciate AW's response, the problem is that I paid $100+ to frame the thing! Ick. I have never had any issue at all with Autograph World's authenticity, so I assume it was good to go. Lesson learned.

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Permalink Reply by Rich on April 5, 2011 at 10:28am

Here is the apparent stinker I got from Autograph World:

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on April 8, 2011 at 11:22am

Apparently, many dealers bolster their stock with TTM signatures. Not sure if they send requests themselves or simply buy it as part of collections they purchase. Maybe both...

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on April 5, 2011 at 11:07am

It's a shame, but they certainly didn't mean to sell you a bad one and they're careful. Can you reuse the frame?

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Permalink Reply by Rich on April 5, 2011 at 11:34am

That's what I'm contemplating - the same frame might work really well with an Indiana Jones photo I have from Collectormania. I'm also thinking about just leaving it as is and displaying it in a dark corner of the basement, lol. Maybe the Hunter's real :)

I checked my invoice - the photo was about $60. I'm pretty sure the frame was at least twice that. What was I thinking?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on April 5, 2011 at 11:38am

That's the bad thing about living in SoCA...we don't have basements to forget things in.

I'm sure the Hunter's real. Get a refund, put the Indiana Jones in there and you're good to go!

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Permalink Reply by Rich on April 5, 2011 at 12:09pm

I went ahead and sent an email to Bob Jones regarding return procedures. Never thought I'd have to do it, but I guess it's hard for a dealer that big to be "perfect."

Thanks again for all the info.

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Permalink Reply by E.B.G. on April 7, 2011 at 12:12am

They are human I suppose.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on April 8, 2011 at 11:40am

You can't always assume that with autograph collectors, EB.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on April 14, 2011 at 5:19pm

There are about 100 Hestons here; good, secretarial, otherwise...and some too small to tell. http://www.hollywoodmemorabilia.com/actor-musician-memorabilia/Char...

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on April 15, 2011 at 5:42am

Jimmy Spence responded back to me personally to agree with the study, thanked me and indicated they were updating their files. Perhaps the JSA pre-dates the release of the study.