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Authenticity is Everything
Charlton Heston - secretarials, variations & authentics (post 'em here)
This is the place for the discussion as to the follow-up for the secretarial study thread.
That thread; proposed;
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."
and it seems to have merit. However, in looking at hundreds of Hestons of late there are many that fall into the above theory and yet quite a few variations that aren't so clean. There are no sacred cows in this thread but do keep it civil.
Bear in mind as you cascade thru the many examples below there are clearly some that fall into this, some that don't and an interesting variation.
Some commentors have been quick to point out that dealers and sellers of these items may have fallen into following a "bogus" exemplar. I will post Jan Schray's exemplars and the "secretarial" one touted here will be found in her 1997 exemplar book. Thus, without a date on COAs it's hard to tell when something was sold.
Cyrkin in the other thread opted to close it with a number of justifications; ... indisputable work. It's at risk of being adulterated by Hestons being presented as either genuine, out and out forgeries, or variations of known secretarials without the painstaking, focused research and consensus-building that made this study so valuable in the first place. That's beyond the scope of this discussion and is putting the study's clarity and integrity at risk.
I for one could not disagree with this rationale moreso. It is thru the posting of perceived hestons that either lends support, refutes or enhances the theory. I noticed the updates to the original blog include; I will note that, out a hundreds of exemplars, I found a handful of books that did not have a distinct "r" formation. My theory is these books may have been through-the-mail exemplars signed by a secretary. The reason for this could be that Mr. Heston's schedule did not allow for signing at that time or, once his illness took hold, secretaries began signing books through the mail as well as photos.
I've also noted this in same discussion with Zipper and there was a suspicion that other forgeries were apparent. it is the continued flow of questionable non-authentic items that gives strength to any theory. I'll attempt to capture the many examples before they are arbitrarily removed.
6/13/12 - Rules of the Thread;
R1 - stay on subject (don't care for moderated blogs but since owners of threads have little recourse to have comments removed at their discretion).
R2 - if you are going to post a link than at a MINIMUM post the picture of the item. The secretarial study thread has a number of links to non-existent photos. Esp Ebay ones as they have been removed by EBAY or no longer visible. If you don't know how then after you post the comment pm me and I'll capture the picture for posterity.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on
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There are three kinds of Heston signatures.
- Authentic
- Secretarial
- Forgeries
In my opinion, it's quite easy to tell the real from secretary. The Char vs Chall is just a starting point and the easiest tell. But there are at least 4 other significant factors. Just by looking at enough of them, it becomes quite easy to identify the difference between the two.
So, that leaves us with option 3 - forgeries. There has been some micro-analysis about "what about this cross stroke or that cross stroke?" I've seen quite a few Heston fakes, and in my opinion, there are no Heston master forgeries. Some are better than others, but they should all be apparent to the trained eye. Perhaps I could be wrong, but I hardly think some master forger is practicing away to cash in on all those $40 SPs.
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Permalink Reply by DB on
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So do you concur with Brick's assessment on the one above?
I doubt we have a master forger making a living but there are lots of pipsqueeks roaming about otherwise where have they come from? The Chariot One RP is one that comes to mind. I need to pull that one over here...
and don't see anything wrong with micro-analysis, do you?
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Brick has a great eye and I agree with him the vast majority of the time. The SP in question is not textbook perfect, but it is VERY close and it was signed with great speed and confidence. Pen pressure and slant are correct. It seems highly unlikely someone could get as close as that Heston is and sign that quickly.
And, if someone was this good at forging Heston, would they be using undesirable black and white photos from lesser known titles?
Looking at the whole picture, I think the SP is most likely authentic.
(If the "Chariot one" is the one I think you are referring to, that was an obvious, hack forgery. Not even close to the B&W portrait we are discussing here.)
You can micro-analyze yourself into a tizzy if you wish. I really don't care. Just saying it might be time better spent micro-analyzing a subject where there is a higher probability of yielding meaningful results.
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interesting as that "r" variation has really been in debate as an illformed r or a bad l.
that's the chariot one... but some fool is going think it's ok and sooner or later buy it. At least it's finally listed as an RP (but there ought to be an effort to weed those out).
don't disagree with the Tizzy part but stopping hundreds of them on ebay has provided meaningful results from at least temporarily buying a non-authentic one with some of those in the several hundred dollar range.
the dizzy part is trying to keep pace with the dozens upon dozens that appear the next day or go onto the 2ndary markets.
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Pulled it over as I'm sure we understood which one we were talking about but in case someone else is wondering what we are talking about; ;
Reply by DB on
what are thoughts on this Heston?
Reply by DB on
Thanks Zip.... for awhile I was having a one sided conversation in this thread...
funny aspect on this one it's the same one you posted around page 26ish... and it is still on ebay being touted as an "authentic RP".
I've noticed a number of them, that appear previously removed, are now reappearing as "authentic preprint/RPs"
Reply by Mr Zipper on
- I love it when people sell the "reprints" and they are prints of fakes. LOL I see it every day.
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Wonderful... now stop hogging up the thread with your ranting.
incidently; In the case of the ones from yesterday, doubt was cast on legitimate autographs... is far from accurate.
There was one that Mike & I hashed out and it's also located here! That's what the threads are also for. If you'd like to discuss this further than PM or call before once again we go off course!
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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on
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DB,
Please take a couple days off to cool down and get your ego in check.
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Wonderful... now stop hogging up the thread with your ranting.
There are no sacred cows in this thread but do keep it civil.
LOL
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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on
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I didn't mean to help propel the original thread beyond its scope. The original post by Mr. Zipper and the first few pages make up the most important part of it and those are basically intact. An outsider isn't going to read through 80 pages. It's nice that Mike's great examples, which were buried in deep pages of Mr. Zipper's study, are available here on the first page.
On another note, I thought this forgery I posted a couple days back looked familiar: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p4340.l25...
I browsed through eBay and found another one by the same seller, roger-wright2, he has 1130 feedback.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p4340.l25...
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Just noticed the new ones put up by this same seller:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CHARLTON-HESTON-autograph-HAND-SIGNED-plane...
And this one:
What junk.
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By the way, I agree with Mike on that in-person. You can really tell it's a nice in-person signature when you go to the eBay page and magnify the picture.
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I agree that the three photos above (Siege, B&W with beard, and POTA in chair) are forgeries all done by the same hand. It's basically C (squiggle) and H (squiggle) with absolutely no nuance or detail. Very obvious fakes that fail formation, baseline, presssure and speed.
BTW, Brick. Do you somehow lock the images you posted? I wanted to create a side by side of the 3 fakes above to demonstrate this forgery style as a reference and I was unable to edit or crop the images in any way.
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