Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Steve Viola on February 15, 2021 at 6:58am

anyone?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on February 15, 2021 at 8:48am

LIkely ok IMO

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Permalink Reply by David Lewis on February 22, 2021 at 10:41pm

Steve, Ever since this was posted I have had a bad feeling about this autograph. I keep coming back to this and have never felt good about it. Back in the day I would tell my UACC friends "It does not talk to me". I hold  Mr. Zarelli in high esteem but I have to dissent on his opinion. This James is too compacted….judge for yourselves. This first image is my friend Mikey, who collected in person in LA for many years, with Mr. Stewart.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on February 23, 2021 at 3:51am

I do not believe the black and white photo with Stewart in a cap is authentic. A common suspect style I wrote about almost 10 years ago. 

http://stevezarelli.blogspot.com/2012/07/james-stewart-suspected-fo...

Stewart can be tough. A lot of variation through the years. 

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Permalink Reply by David Lewis on February 23, 2021 at 6:49am

Mr. Zarelli, You are of course correct about the Stewart in the hat. I was trying to make a point about "James" being more open and less cramped that I missed that train wreck. 

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on February 23, 2021 at 5:58am

David - Fair point about the card that started the thread. My initial reaction was it wasn't a sure thing, but likely ok. If it's bad, it's certainly a cut above the garden variety fakes that infest eBay. I'll need to go through my files and take a second look.

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Permalink Reply by David Lewis on February 23, 2021 at 7:27am

Mr. Zarelli, My problem with the card is the "ames" in James should be fuller. My thinking is you can have a fuller "a" and less of an "s", or vice versa. Overall in my humble opinion the signature seems sanitized and lifeless. 

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on February 23, 2021 at 7:50am

In my experience, part of the challenge of Stewart is that there are so many fakes in circulation -- many of them "authenticated" -- it has distorted the exemplar pool.

For instance, there are mass quantities of IAWL photos signed in the upper left in blue marker. And mass quantities of postal covers signed in blue marker. These all have the smashed up looking "ames" and "tewart" with a wild, loose application. I wouldn't pay a nickel for any of them. 

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Permalink Reply by David Lewis on February 23, 2021 at 8:15am

On my many trips out to the LA shows and here in the D.C. area when the UACC shows came to town, it was a challenge early on with the secretarial Stewarts then the flood of his fakes. The countless number of times going thru partially filled authentic autograph books that had been filled with crap…..

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Permalink Reply by Steve Viola on February 23, 2021 at 8:53am

Thank you both.  Would it be safer to go after a signed book of his poems such as this?

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Permalink Reply by David Lewis on February 23, 2021 at 11:20am

Steve, Not a fan of your book signature, and stay away from any of his bookplates. I like his checks, and album pages from after the war….if it happed to be war date he occasionally would include his rank.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Viola on February 24, 2021 at 4:18am

Interesting.  I never knew forging Mr. Stewart was such big business.  The reason I brought the book up is they are usually less likely to be forged than photos and I have seen similar shaky signatures (with Jimmy)  in the poem book that were certified.  Any particular reason you dont like this one?  Im trying to learn.

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