Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mark Adams on January 4, 2021 at 4:48pm

Hi Tyler, 

I would be most uncomfortable buying this as a genuine hand signed. 

It's difficult because the picture is not clear. I think it is a autopen. 

This is one that was on the forum recently. It's a genuine example and close to your image. 

Iles signature is always difficult to verify without the aid of books illustrating known examples of autopen and secretarial etc. 

'I like Ike' 

Regards, 

Mark 

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Permalink Reply by kmansc on January 6, 2021 at 6:15pm

I've been struggling with this issue (legit, autopen, or secretarial) for 20th Century Presidents myself.  Is there anybody in this group who knows of some good articles or resources for differentiating between real Presidential signatures and secretarial?  It seems like with a close examination, one should be able to detect an autopen but a good secretarial signature is like a good forgery: it will be live ink that looks like the President's signature!  

Kenneth Rendell's Forging History has some examples of secretarials and real signatures of 20th Century Presidents, so that can be a resource, but he glosses over the subject and doesn't explain the key differences.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on January 6, 2021 at 7:08pm

Member Herman Darvick is very knowledgeable about Presidential autographs and secretarials. It does not appear an Autopen to me.

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Permalink Reply by Tyler Grimes on January 6, 2021 at 10:31pm

My first thought also was that it is not Autopen because the flow of the ink seems to change (shape/pen pressure) which would be uncharacteristic of Autopen if I’m not mistaken.  I also couldn’t find an autopen example out there that matched up but you never know.  I’m not familiar with his secretary signatures. 

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on January 6, 2021 at 11:37pm

+1 Exactly re Autopen.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Adams on January 6, 2021 at 8:38pm

Hi, 

Since the request was for articles and reference material not dealers here is a short list of some books etc. 

The first image is from a dealer that you can visit for a number of books/articles. 

Mark 

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Permalink Reply by kmansc on January 6, 2021 at 9:27pm

Thanks. But references to dealers or members who are knowledgeable would also be greatly appreciated.  I just want to learn more about identifying the real thing.

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Permalink Reply by dave thomas on January 6, 2021 at 8:28pm

There's a Presidential dealer in missouri, I don't know the name but his website looks like 1998 who is very good at this kind of verification. Usually these kinds of letters are either autopen or secretarial and most secretaries can do better ones than the actual person because they need to make it look real.  

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