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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 Mike Sibley on October 28, 2011 at 6:34am

Hi DB - not been hiding as such, but keeping an eye on this great topic. The input from everyone has been amazing and I notice those early doubters have gone quiet!

There are so many sellers and dealers out here that if aware of this topic, have simply decided to ignore it and continue selling the secretarial signatures as genuine.

I politely challenged a dealer at an event over here in the UK earlier this year when I picked up on his three Heston signatures as being 'Chall' and therefore secretarial. His first reaction to me was one of 'who do you think you are, telling me, a dealer in autographs that these are not genuine". He didn't say that as such but his whole demeanour showed it. He half listened and when I directed him to the web address for this discussion, he half heartedly took the info and turned away to talk to someone else! I am back at a similar event in November and if he is there, I will be taking another look at his Heston signatures. I'm pretty sure they will still be up for sale, unless he has managed to make a few more dishonest pounds by selling them to the less informed buyers out there!

All we can do is to keep highlighting and challenging. Mike.

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on October 27, 2011 at 10:20pm

The first one doesn't check out. It's junk. The bottom one, purportedly signed in Beverly Hills looks like a good sign. Matches very well with some of the signatures on the first page of this thread in fact.

Here's one just listed on eBay. It's a Char. Or an Eiffel tower Char as you call them, DB. It looks like a forgery. A Char/Chall hybrid to me.

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on November 6, 2011 at 5:12pm

Given the amount of PSA authenticated Chall's on eBay at lower prices, people are aware they're secretarial and still trying to dump them. Unfortunately, a lot of UACC registered dealers and members are still selling Challs. Even ones whom Bob Shinn mentioned notifying earlier on in this thread. Even ones who originally took down their Challs.

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on November 7, 2011 at 6:10pm

It's sad this PSA authenticated secretarial sold on a best offer for $70 shipped.

Particularly when authentic Alaska signed pictures are only $36 with a make an offer option.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Charlton-Heston-autograph-8x10-photo-ALASKA...

I have a feeling these would sell pretty quick if the sellers added "signed" to the title and maybe put some on regular 7 day listings.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on November 10, 2011 at 4:45am

I bought 15 of these after Zipper's study was posted here. How these are still in stock and for such an amazing price is beyond me :(

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Permalink Reply by DB on November 9, 2011 at 3:13pm

Just to follow on silverscreensignatures

Zip, don't know if this is one of my "eiffel tower" characters or the new forged R. I think the former but could be easily swayed to the later.

Brandon u might want to let Sipe know that this is not an authentic Heston and because GA certed it it's being touted as such. Bad feng shui! Don't know when they certed it but they should notify the seller.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Charlton-Heston-8x10-SIGNED-PHOTO-Autograph...

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on November 9, 2011 at 5:26pm

It's a forgery in my opinion. Silverscreensignatures has very few genuine pieces. GA rubber stamps a lot of bad items for this seller on eBay, just look at their other items.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on November 10, 2011 at 5:20am

Thanks for the notification!! I will forward this to Steve today.

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Permalink Reply by DB on November 10, 2011 at 4:44pm

Some days I just don't think the next one can outdo the last one. I am never ceased to be amazed...

Here we have a Kevin Martin PiecePast2 offering with a GAI cert. The write-up however says they never sell reprints...but what about secretarials?

WE NEVER SELL REPRINTS!!!

You are bidding on a hand-signed 8 X 10 photo of the Late Great CHARLTON HESTON in probably his Most remembered role as Moses from the 1956 Epic THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. It has been GAI Certified and issued number GV345294. "Global is approved by ebay as a third party authenticator". It is in wonderful condition and would make an excellent addition to any entertainment lover's Legends of Hollywood collection.

You are contacting a company that has been in business as a full time autograph dealer specializing in only entertainment for the last 28 years now, longer than ANY other dealer to specialize in this field.

Our CEO Kevin Martin has authored more books by more publishers than ANY other dealer or authenticator in this field, not to mention the over 400 articles published worldwide as well as the longest running column "Fakes, Frauds and Forgeries" for Autograph Collector Magazine. ( no longer in circulation )

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on November 11, 2011 at 12:38am

The picture you posted which was listed by silverscreensignatures sold on a best offer for $70. That's a lot of money. Especially when a real signature on one of the Alaska pictures sold for $20. $70 is a lot for a forgery or anything from Charlton Heston. Prices should be higher but they aren't. Most likely partially because of all the secretarials out there.

That Moses with the Mike Baker cert is a horrible forgery of a secretarial. Just horrible. Where did you find that "gem"?

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on November 11, 2011 at 3:46am

Here's a strange one. Purported to be signed in the '70s. It sold for $8 shipped on eBay.

It's hard to buy the authenticity of it with the C and a few other things, but a few tweaks and this could be a very good forgery. Sad.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on November 11, 2011 at 4:56am

Right... with all the secretarials and now the emerging forgeries, the fair market value of a real Heston is completely diluted. It should be at least $50 for a real one.

In my UACC Ethics role I have been contacting UACC members and advising them of the secretarial, etc. It's like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. Exhausting and frustrating.