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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 Eric Keith Longo on March 8, 2020 at 2:18pm

Just like Jackie Gleason. About 50% of what they show at PSA Facts are secretarials or forgeries of secretarials. :( And it is now old information...

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Permalink Reply by Todd Johnson on April 24, 2020 at 11:20pm

Wanted to share another Heston/Omega Man piece I picked up from framer the other day. This one also has a Heston book cut and 5 indexes sized down of the other 5 main cast members, along with headshots I printed. I love this movie and other Heston old films and have met the legend a handful of times way back. This study helped when I first read thru it some years back (I had previously bought a few 3x5’s after he passed for the few photos I had left, but have since replaced those w/book cuts in a few smaller framed pieces I may offer on here if anyone is interested. So here is my second framed piece from The Omega Man!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on April 25, 2020 at 7:29am

That looks fantastic. Really nice job.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on April 25, 2020 at 7:37am

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Permalink Reply by Todd Johnson on June 5, 2020 at 11:08pm

I recently picked up a dated album page Heston autograph (1952) and after getting matts cut, assembled this Soylent Green piece in 14x11 frame. Found a patch (over the lower right printed card) that fit my plans well. It's getting rather obvious to my other friends that I'm maybe into Heston too much haha. I just love his 70's sci-fi movies. Probably one more 11x14 to do to fill the wall space in. Either Planet/Apes or one last Omega Man.

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Permalink Reply by Greg on June 6, 2020 at 3:27am

That’s an awesome piece! You can never have too much Heston! ;)

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Permalink Reply by Todd Johnson on June 6, 2020 at 2:13pm

Thanks Greg! Agree with ya. Probably the biggest Hollywood figure to me that I’d met on different occasions in Dallas. I even bought back on the bay my Bible signed book w/ event stuff, proof pic, and my “worthless” little COA from a relative of the buyer, sold 20 years ago. Was surprised to see it and glad to have it back!

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Permalink Reply by Michael Selby on June 14, 2020 at 2:07am

It is stuff like this that becomes a problem after authenticated and those companies have no desire to keep their data accurate. Current asking price for this is over $600. Saw one from another set with a $300 plus price.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on June 14, 2020 at 1:21pm

In all fairness, this is "Beckett Grading Services," which "graded" the card. Not the same as Beckett Authentication Services, who I would hope would not pass this. It's possible this pre-dates the secretary study.

That said, the potential for confusion between the grading and authentication divisions is understandable. The same thing happens with PSA.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Selby on June 14, 2020 at 2:12am

I picked this one up years ago, hard to believe it has been nearly 20 years since it's release.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Strecker on June 14, 2020 at 7:34am

Beckett should be ashamed of this. When the top authenticator for the company can't even get the basic time period right of a ring worn wrestling item (Macho Man Randy Savage/Pawn Stars) how can you trust them authenticating autographs?

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Permalink Reply by Michael Selby on June 15, 2020 at 2:21am

Unfortunately the slab companies offer so many services that it becomes confusing to collectors who do not normally deal with them.

Came across this one where I guess Beckett just slabs items without looking at them. I informed the seller they were pushing David Carradine and not Don Cheadle........they didn't care. Still up for sale as Cheadle.

I get a headache just looking at their ridiculous tiered price lists. I guess it's a good thing though, it has kept me from ever submitting anything. ;-)