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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 Steve Zarelli on March 16, 2012 at 6:11am

Any response from the dealer?

The UACC can pursue these things, but it's always best to raise the question with the dealer yourself as a first step.

Some have been critical of the UACC in that the group doesn't do enough in terms of publications, conventions, etc., etc. The fact is it is run by volunteers who all have other full time jobs. And it's hard to get positive things done when every spare moment we have is used to mitigate issues -- some legit and some not. This is why I ask the complainant to take the first steps. In many cases the dealer just doesn't know.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 16, 2012 at 12:45pm

heard back he appreciated the information and as of right now the remaining 3 non-authentic ones are gone.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 16, 2012 at 7:48am

Mr Zipper,

I think the UACC is a fine organization, but I agree with DB here. I don't consider what he did a gotya anymore than members here calling out PSA/DNA and JSA for the Heston secretarials they certified.

Any UACC Registered Dealer who hasn't purged them from their inventory is a dealer who should be called out...and examined. After all, the UACC did inform them, right?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 16, 2012 at 7:56am

I wasn't primarily referring to DB.

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Permalink Reply by Lou reves on May 16, 2012 at 11:46am

These to are for sale now in the sports card section?

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Permalink Reply by DB on May 17, 2012 at 11:09am

So to conclude this; Good Find Louie!

According to UD, like Razor Entertainment, they typically have PSA or JSA provide certifications and they supply the "slabbing". They further indicate that there are approximately "16" numbered ones floating around that have this version of Heston. There may be some unnumbered ones but weren't able to confirm the numbers.

Thus, with these documented if collectors search on it before buying these "Prominent Cuts" they might save themselvers alot of $$.