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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 Cyrkin, Admin on March 9, 2011 at 4:33pm

Louie, thanks! The only signed photo in the book was the one from Starbrite's inventory I posted elsewhere here.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 7, 2011 at 5:05am

My one challenge was finding a confirmed signed in-person photograph for the blog article. Having that would really round out the presentation and be the final confirmation needed. If anyone has one they'd like to share, I'd love to include it in my presentation. I'd be happy to credit the person who provides the image. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 7, 2011 at 7:53am

I sense the price will be going up soon. ;-) Once you weed out all the secretarial "Chall"s, an actual authentic signed photo is uncommon. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Just about every dealer has the suspected secretarials in inventory.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 14, 2011 at 9:01am

I agree - but I don't believe Greg s/b so hard on 3rd parties as there are always going to be exceptions. Like we have spoken of time and time again on other threads and it's not worth going back into it here

As far as what prices they go for right now some of the ones I have seen that appear real - range from $55.00 to $275.00+ so steve could be right on.

then again there will always be the other places like this one at coach's....

Number	Description	Current Bid
2419	Charlton Heston auto 3.75x4.75" B&W fan club photo, deceased!	0

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Permalink Reply by Mike Sibley on March 13, 2011 at 9:38pm

Hello,

I have just stumbled across your article on Chartlton Heston's signature. I have been collecting his signature for nearly 30 years and currently have in my collection 108 genuine signatures by Mr Heston. I also have a stack of secreterials! I have been aware of the secreterial situation for many years now but didn't want to be the one who announced it to all those collectors out there that their through the mail Charlton Heston signature was likely to be secreterial! I know how disappointing that can be!

I would be happy to let you have some scan examples from my genuine signatures, many of which I got in person having met Mr. Heston on four occasions when he visited the UK.

I also have another way of telling the difference between the two signatures and a typed letter from Mr. Heston stating in it that he has a legally authorised person who signs a number of items for him ie: photos, baseballs etc.

I will put some stuff together over the next few weeks and e-mail it to you. I'm afraid I can't do it sooner but will get it to you a soon as I can.

Kindest regards,

Mike in the UK.

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Permalink Reply by Rolf Ramseier on March 14, 2011 at 1:24am

Mike,

that's very interesting, especially a copy of the document were he legally authorisid person to sign for him would be very nice to see. Thanks for your help,

Rolf

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 14, 2011 at 1:42am

Miike, thank you. We're looking forward to it.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 14, 2011 at 6:02am

Very interesting... I'd love to see it. Thanks for jumping in. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 14, 2011 at 10:00am

Mike, thank you. That will be very helpful.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on March 7, 2011 at 5:55am

One of the biggest movers of Heston material outside of ebay, is Autograph World. Steve, do you think they would suspend selling any Hestons and/or make a statement to possible buyers until this can be sorted out?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 7, 2011 at 8:25am

Not that I doubt Steve's work, but his findings need to be verified just to make sure they're rock solid.

In science, they'd have a peer review. Steve, have you gotten feedback from dealers who regularly handle Heston material? It would be interesting to hear what they have to say. If Autograph World is a major Heston dealer like Brandon says, their input would be valuable. They're good people who are careful about what they sell.

I'll talk to Larry Grobel and see if he can ask Heston's widow how things were handled.

I'm being pulled in a number of directions, so I may not get my part even started today, but I'm checking in when I can. These are the kinds of constructive blogs we need more of. But it would be a shame if a lot of collectors bought Heston secretarials and are stuck.