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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 Bob Shinn on March 15, 2011 at 9:22am

We are now 10 days into this study, but one of the biggest players in the Authenticating Arena ,

PSA/DNA, has not responded to repeated requests to explain how they continue to make the same mistakes,

over and over , while in possesion of Genuine Exemplars of Charlton Hestons Signatures.

Check out the following:

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on March 15, 2011 at 10:16am

So, is someone saying that PSA was authenticating the Chall variation at a show this past week-end?

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Permalink Reply by Bob Shinn on March 15, 2011 at 12:57pm

YEP!!!!!!

Ebay Store AAH Amazing Autographs had this to say to me yesterday when I notified them of the study:

"I will speak with PSA and see if they agree. With all due respect I have no idea who you are as you didn't identify yourself and opinions vary greatly on autographs. Ebay trust PSA as do I and I have paid to have this authenticated and they clearly believe the item is authentic. Of course I care about my feedback and my customers so for you to even insinuate anything different is upsetting and uncalled for. I will tell you this I just had several more Heston autographs like this authenticated just yesterday at the Chicago Sun Times show. My thought is you should be contacting PSA with your concerns. I know Steve Grad works closley with Autograph Magazine and would be surprised if he was passing anything not authentic. Thank you for you message and I will contact PSA. Thank you."

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Permalink Reply by Bob Shinn on March 15, 2011 at 1:01pm

And this:

"I have been reading the article and all 35 pages of comments. Nobody is for sure and like I said PSA just slabbed two signed trading cards yesterday so either they have not made a decision or they don't believe them to be fake. Thats all I can say right now I will tell you in all my years of dealing with PSA if something is has any doubt they just say no because they get paid the same yes or no. I will however promise you that if anyone should buy a Heston until this is taken care of I will direct them to that article because that is the right thing to do. I appreciate you taking time to email me I really do but again I don't know you and insinuating I don't care about my customers or feedback it very incorrect so that kind of took this whole situation in the wrong direction. Had you just pointed out the article that would have been enough. Again thank you. Andy"

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 15, 2011 at 1:13pm

Is this the same guy as before?

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Permalink Reply by Bob Shinn on March 15, 2011 at 1:22pm

Yes Steve, Sorry

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on March 15, 2011 at 1:18pm

There's one thing we have to understand and that is that the majority of sellers like that DO NOT know autographs. They are retailers looking to make a profit. Period. They don't study autographs and they have no desire to study autographs.