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Heath Ledger Signed Cut

I am looking at buying this signed cut from a dealer on Facebook. He has a long and upstanding reputation, and says that he got this signature in person when filming a movie with Heath around 2001 (confirmed via imdb). It is on a 4x6 card and is currently matted and framed. I did a quick opinion via acoa and everyone liked it, but the more eyes on it the better. Please let me know what you think, as this is obviously not a cheap item. Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on February 13, 2018 at 5:28pm

I once helped, along with Pete, member Gochi1 buy a Ledger, and I did not like this cut when posted. YMMV.

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Permalink Reply by Joe W. on February 13, 2018 at 5:40pm

I wish your company well. It's an extremely difficult service especially with many of the rushed, in person signatures by today's celebrities. I do love your pricing structure and will definitely consider your service when I need some good eyes and experience.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on February 13, 2018 at 6:03pm

+! I as well! If I can ever offer any help, if needed, re Gleason/Bowie you need only ask.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. Steffman on February 13, 2018 at 6:06pm

Thanks Joe. We'll be issuing Could Not Determine on anything that is hyper-minimal, unless the signer has enough commonly found subtleties for us to justifiably conclude one way or another. Jared Leto is a good example of a signature that appears hyper-minimal and assumably easy to replicate, but isn't, and I think that "I'm safe, this is easy" assumption actually works against lazy forgers often. In fact, consistent problems amongst hyper-minimal signatures are something we immediately look at when doing cross-inventory auditing of a source, because it's something many good/bad mixers specialize in.

I expect that we'll be able to fail a good deal of hyper-minimal fakes that fall too far outside the normal range of variations easier than we will be able to pass hyper-minimal authentic signatures which lack consistent subtleties, but we'll take one submission at a time and see.

One thing I know for sure, is messy signatures look a lot more structured when you have 50 of them in front of you.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. Steffman on February 13, 2018 at 5:41pm

Was it the book obtained by an Aussie fan on the set of Candy? Or the Today Show guestbook? I actually thought the same at first, but the consistency of various fuller examples convinced me out of it. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to overlap in PS to see if they could even be traced. There are a good deal of good aspects to this thing, and I generally like it better than the abbreviated messy Heaths that appear on the market regularly without any known story or history.

Another odd but only circumstantial thing, is the photo that the seller shared of the cut, which appears to show it framed on his wall and he shot it with a mobile phone, you can see his reflection. It looks like a pretty casually taken photo. He does have a photo with Heath on the movie set together, which of course means very little. As of yet, I haven't heard of him trying to push other Heath autographs using his photo in the past, so that's a plus I guess.

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Permalink Reply by Corey Moylan on February 13, 2018 at 6:03pm

Thanks for the information Steffman. Just curious, if this item came to you for authentication, would this still be approved and issued a COA? Assuming this is pen on paper. I didn’t read otherwise - other than Pete’s comment that he didn’t like it.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. Steffman on February 13, 2018 at 6:12pm

If this item was submitted for Pre-Certification, it would have been shown to twice as many team members, including Pete, who would have noted the factors he disliked; which would have put the item into Discussion for a longer review.

We could easily spend the full $50 submission fee paying authenticators and consultants to debate this one, and it's worth it.

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Permalink Reply by Corey Moylan on February 13, 2018 at 6:24pm

Understand the process completely. It’s the beauty of an opinion. However, in my opinion, someone just saved themselves 50 bucks through one single free post of an expert

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Permalink Reply by Joe W. on February 13, 2018 at 6:50pm

I am a huge fan of Pete as well. He has consistently helped me over several years. Being an old time collector I have a tough time with most modern signatures. I know that no one is infallible but would go with Pete's take every time. Just not worth the risk IMO.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. Steffman on February 14, 2018 at 6:02am

If Jason took the Likely Authentic determination of the Fast Opinion and went ahead and purchased the item, he would have spent the price of the item plus $5.

I don't know what the result of a full $50 authentication on this piece would be, but it could very well end up Passing. A detailed LOA and online COA from our company, combined with (what I suggested Jason ask for) a notarized letter from the seller, stating the story of working with Ledger on the set, combined with the photo of the seller with Ledger, that's a good result.

If it ultimately failed, then you'd be right. Unless Jason saw value in also having an additional 5 experts review the piece. It's a matter of preference, really.

Attached is a sample from NBC's Today Show guestbook for some comparison. I was able to justify the differences between the submitted piece and this sample by using other fuller signature variations in our pool.

To cross out what I felt was a positive point about this piece that I made earlier though, I went back and looked at the image of the item in a frame that the seller shared, and it wasn't on his wall as my memory had me convinced. It's professionally sealed up and ready to ship out. Uh oh.

Attachments: No photo uploads here

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Permalink Reply by Joe W. on February 14, 2018 at 6:13am

I certainly am not questioning this signature and wouldn't know Ledger's signature. What has gotten my interest in your new authentication service and, from what I have observed, a great group of reviewers you have on board. I will definitely be using your quick opinion service. I guess your biggest challenge will be getting exposed and recognized on level with the big two. Advanced collectors normally don't need a COA to feel comfortable but the casual collector is becoming more and more dependent on them. I think we all have the same agenda; helping autograph collecting hobby improve it's rapidly deteriorating reputation. I love this challenging hobby!