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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 Roger hall on November 17, 2016 at 10:42pm

The end result may be the same, but to own a forged, secretarial somehow feels worse than owning the secretarial. Lol.

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Permalink Reply by Scott Paul on November 18, 2016 at 4:41am

In a perverse way there is some comfort that forgers are forging secretarial rather than real signatures.

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Permalink Reply by Scott Paul on November 18, 2016 at 4:39am

I know it is not much consolation but PSA-DNA, JSA and many others were fooled by this "style" of his autograph so don't feel bad. I agree with Steve I think this is a forgery and not Heston's personal secretary. She was really good at his signature and was much smoother than this appears to be.

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Permalink Reply by David Priol on December 12, 2016 at 12:52am

Perhaps you could also look at this one too, thanks... :)

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Permalink Reply by David Priol on December 12, 2016 at 12:49am

Hey Steve, I think you checked this for me some years ago and confirmed that this was the authentic style when the first study came out, but I just want to confirm mate that my memory is correct, please? Cheers from downunda David :)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on December 12, 2016 at 6:51pm

Hi David - I don't recall seeing this pic before, but I could be mistaken. I agree with Jason that it is suspect.

The wreck photo is undoubtedly secretary IMO.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on December 12, 2016 at 6:53pm

Agree.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Strecker on December 12, 2016 at 2:24pm

The Wreck photo is secretarial, I think an 80s version and in later years the double L became more prominent. I think the other is a forgery trying hand at the real signature.

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Permalink Reply by David Priol on December 13, 2016 at 12:45am

Cheers for that guys and out they go.... your time is appreciated... it was shortly after the study as I returned a bunch of Planet of the Apes signed photos to a seller. They were great and gave an instant refund. These have been sitting in my personal collection for a long time but was planning to sell them but not now. D... :) Have a great Christmas across the pond... :)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on February 2, 2017 at 5:01pm

In my opinion, this is good. Appears to be a fountain pen signature.

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Permalink Reply by Greg on May 22, 2017 at 6:00pm

Not much action on this thread lately, so I thought I'd put another one out there! So I know there are scores of secretarials out there, and forgeries of those secretarials (!), but has anyone ever come across a forgery of a genuinely signed Charlton Heston?
Here is one in which the Charlton looks correct, but the Heston is not quite what you would expect, especially the 'Hes' part. It looks too strictly up and down, whereas usual Hestons start more like a softer 'V' or 'U' shape that also usually doubles back on itself before going into an 's' shaped letter. It has the appearance of a nice 'sit down' signature, so I'm wondering why he would have been lazy on this one part, which is making me think it could perhaps be a forgery, since the rest looks so neatly done? Thanks for any and all input in getting this thread going again!!

Attachments: No photo uploads here