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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 Rolf Ramseier on March 22, 2011 at 6:27am

Mike,

again many thanks for sharing.

What a nice and interesting letter. I hope collectors will also notice his quote :

"I suppose the end result is the old saw - buyer beware."

Simple as it is, it is well true !

I also would like my own study's I did several years ago had been proved wrong, cause I have a lot of secretarial Heston's in my own collection as well, but I was always sure my findings were correct and with all the confirmations and finding in this blog I think it has been now finally proved ! Now also the ultimate skeptic must fall silent now.

I am now more proud of my Q&A he filled out in his own hand.

Rolf

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 22, 2011 at 7:34am

Rolf & Steve Z (aka The ZipMan!) and a whole host of others that contributed and wrestled this to the ground once and for all. Like a bell shape curve in seminars I give through-out corporate land there are the "early Adopters on one end followed by the sabateurs on the other end. In the middle right there are those that accept something but not as quickly as the early adopters and the middle left are the ones that will eventually come around (90% that is).

It is the sabateurs & the 10% that need to be carefully monitored or as I have had the pleasure of invoking - coach, coach, coach; Change! Unfortunately, we are somewhat authority less with this bunch so the only way to neutralize them is to keep at these studies and posts and never say die.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Barrucci on March 22, 2011 at 11:16am

I just wanted to talk about a "personal letter" I received from Heston's home in 1999. It is the third one I have seen, alongside Mike's, and also Dennis'. I had sent Mr. Heston a copy of a fan magazine I had briefly worked on, along with a request for a possible (short) telephone interview with him. This was at a time where he had contracted prostate cancer, so I also wished him the best on his battle with that.

It was another of the typed responses on his own personalized stationery, where he thanked me for the copy of the magazine ("I am very pleased to have it and am delighted that you'd take the time to send it to me") but did not address the request for an interview. He also thanked me for inquiring about his bout with prostate cancer, and responded that recently his PSA count was very good and that he and his doctors are very optimistic. He signed off reminding me to encourage any man I know over the age of 40 to have his prostate health monitored regularly, and wished me "good luck with your magazine as with all else".

The big signature on the bottom of the typed letter was the "Challton" secreterial (unfortunately), so I know now that the autograph is a fake. But my purpose in writing about this is wondering if the typed portion of the letter was faked as well? Charlton Heston had a very specific and polite style in speaking, using words like "indeed", and "delighted". Each of these 3 typed letters I've seen has very "Heston-like" language, and always has the writer using a colon instead of a semi-colon, as you can see with Mike's letter (and Dennis' as well; I forget if he posted it it here or not, but I have seen it on another site... Like mine, Dennis' is also signed "Challton", neither "Char" nor "Ch"").

I guess I'm just wondering why a secretarial autograph would be on the end of my letter, where everything typed would appear to be Charlton Heston's authentic language and style? Each of these letters is signed "Cordially"...

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 22, 2011 at 11:35am

I also have two "Chall" TLSs. Given the content of my letters, I agree that they seemed personal and it lent to the perception that the letters were authentically signed.

One of two things is possible. He actually did dictate the letters but didn't sign them, or they had templates they used for common questions/scenarios.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 22, 2011 at 11:49am

Right... I'm sure they got hundreds of letters asking about his health. Or people sending him articles or some other memento.

I asked if he ever thought about running for political office. This was probably a common question too.

They could easily have fill-in-the-blank template responses for all of these.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 22, 2011 at 11:51am

So... what do you folks do with your collectibles once they have been shown to be fake?

You going to run them through a shredder? Keep them as a memento anyway?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 22, 2011 at 12:12pm

No need for a Burczyk COA. For all we know, PSA may still be greenlighting them. It's hard to tell as they haven't responded to anyone in 2 weeks.

JSA = 2 day response

PSA = 2 weeks and waiting

Perhaps there is something to be learned from this. ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Robert Zarrillo on March 22, 2011 at 3:44pm

I may be alone in this but I consider secretarials "proxy" signatures and still "movie memorabilia" and they still have value - especially letters which he obviously dictated. How much value is for the market to determine but they have to be identified in the sale clearly as secretarial items. Personnally on eBay I'd just have nominal starting bids - maybe even 99 cents! Still this is quite different from out and out forgeries which I'd trash (once I'm sure). Though I have sold some at shows which I've rubber stamped on the back "Signature replica" or something as such. They may go in the dollar pile too. Sometimes its worth it to try to erase the signatures altogether - the movie stills would be worth more not all "marked up" like that. Of couse my mindset is as a movie memorabilia dealer first (which I've been for a lifetime) and as an autograph collector/dealer second.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Sibley on March 22, 2011 at 1:48pm

Joe

I have had a look at the six letters I had back from Mr. Heston's home address over the years that were all signed secreterial. I agree about what you say regarding his style of speaking. My thoughts on this is that they have been dictated by him but obviously not signed by him.

I have added an example of one of myletters that doesn't lend to the fill-in-the-blank template theory (though a couple of them could well be so). I asked him about his autobiography and if he had any plans to return to the London stage.

Mike.

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

Hello Travis,

I hear what you say and as I have said before, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Yes, until some one manages to track down the 'secretary' and gain a confession for want of a better word, then the subject is probably not 100% for some people. But you have to look at the overwhelming evidence.

It is not just the 'Chall' versus 'Char' side of things. For me it has always also been about the 'ES'. In the secreterial signatures which are 'Chall', the 'ES' loops back on itself for want of a better description. The genuine Heston's 'ES' is more 'jagged'.

On all the secreterials I have and all others I have seen, there has never been a 'Chall' with a 'jagged' 'ES' and I have never seen a 'Char' with a 'looped' back ES'. If as you say, Mr. Heston felt like changing his signature from time to time, surely there would be samples of the two mixtures? The other thing, every in person I have had from Mr. Heston (12 in total) has been the 'Char' and 'jagged 'ES' and not the other way round, or indeed not a mixture of both. Baring in mind these 12 signatures were gained in 1985, 1988, 1997 and 1999, you would thing that there would be a good chance of getting a 'Chall' or combinations as above?

Look at these examples again...both 'Chall' with a 'looped' 'ES'

And below to show this one again, top is 'Chall' and 'looped' 'ES' TTM and bottom in person 'Char' and 'jagged' 'ES'.

Everyone's signature can vary from time to time, but do any of us change it as we write it just because we feel like it? Try writing your full name at the speed you would normally and then try writing it again but changing something in the first name and changing something in the surname. I have tried it over and over and it is very difficult to do - and why would you? Yes I guess you could get good at it over a period of time, but again, why would you?

I don't want to try and convince you Travis, but for me and all the years of collecting this signature, I just know instintively when one signature is genuine and one is secreterial. The evidence presented throughout this discussion should now be enough for dealers to be professional enough to say, yes there is doubt and until it's shown/proven that all the signatures TTM were done by Mr Heston and not by anyone else , then they should withdraw from selling this 'Chall' version of the signature.

For me. I am 100% convinced that 24 of my Heston signatures were written by someone else other than Mr. Heston and all were from his home address and 'Chall' with 'looped' 'ES'.

As for condenming Mr. Heston - no sir not me. I had nothing but huge respect for this giant of a man. He was always gracious and kind when I met him and I don't know of many major stars that made such an effort to answer his fans over so many years. I can only imagine the amount of mail he must have been getting each day and if that meant having someone "legally authorized to sign various photos and papers" for him in order that he could please all his fans, then I won't condenm him for that.