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Nirvana guitar dilemma…

Hi folks. I am not an educated collector or dealer in memorabilia in any way. I walked into a memorabilia shop in New Orleans in 2008. There I found a Fender guitar autographed by my favorite band of all time, Nirvana. I was in decent shape financially at that moment and decided I wanted it. It was around $4000. The place seemed legit and it never occurred to me to question it. I bought it and took it home smiling ear to ear.

I put it in storage intending to have a display case built for it. In 2019, I hit a financial rough patch and thought about selling it. I contacted an auction house in Texas and their representative asked for pictures which I took and sent. After a couple of weeks, he finally emailed me saying that he couldn’t verify it’s authenticity. I was thunderstruck and indignant. The auction house guy was cool about it and gently explained to me that liars and forgers doing their thing basically make any autographed thing be seen by serious collectors as fake until proven true. He said I need to send it to a company for authentication. When I said I didn’t have an extra $300-$400 to send it in for this, he said to research the guitar itself and at least find out if it was made before Kurt died in 1994. I found that is actually a decent guitar. It is a somewhat sought after USA Fender “Strat,” manufactured in 1988 or ‘89 that still sells for over $1000. So far so good.

The dilemma: After seeing all the posts on this fine site, it seems that you guys feel that 99.9% of Nirvana autographs people ask about here are fake. So, now here in 2021, I could probably come up with the cash to send it in to Beckett or JSA. However, I’m not trying to throw money away if there is no chance of good news. So, I was hoping the experts here might help me decide if I should send it in and pay to have it evaluated for authenticity or not. Thanks for your thoughts!!

TL;DR Do these autographs look authentic?

Tags: Cobain, Kurt, Nirvana, guitar

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on December 31, 2021 at 1:36am

I hate to say it but none of the autographs have a chance of being real in my opinion.

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Permalink Reply by Dan Morris on December 31, 2021 at 1:47am

Steve is correct, these are bad forgeries and save yourself money by not getting Beckett involved. Sadly, it's an expensive mistake.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Booth on December 31, 2021 at 2:10am

Sorry, these are not real.

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Permalink Reply by Josh Board on December 31, 2021 at 1:39pm

they don't look good to me

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Permalink Reply by Atom the Robot on December 31, 2021 at 9:24pm

Thanks kindly for your feedback, that’s pretty much what I thought you guys might say. Is there any chance you guys could elaborate somewhat on what details you noticed that led to those opinions? Some things a layman could see and understand would help me tremendously!

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Permalink Reply by J.Seah on January 1, 2022 at 8:12am

There are only a handful of signed Nirvana guitars. They are in EMP in Seattle or in private collection. Once in a while it comes up in auction at the big auction houses. This signed guitar is not authentic imo.

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Permalink Reply by 0800Autocollect on January 1, 2022 at 8:36am

EMP?

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Permalink Reply by J.Seah on January 1, 2022 at 9:01am

EMP is the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle where the Nirvana Exhibit is at.

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Permalink Reply by Classic Rock on January 4, 2022 at 4:46am

Experience Music Project

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Permalink Reply by marc e on January 3, 2022 at 5:00pm

same hand and on top of if it was real you really did damage by having it faded so much but as people said there are very few real guitars

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Permalink Reply by Atom the Robot on January 3, 2022 at 8:23pm

Thanks again, guys! After comparing signatures side by side with multiple verified legit signatures, I have concluded that the “David” signature is indeed too different from the verified one to be legit. That is enough for me to give up on it. Thanks for helping!

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Permalink Reply by Greg Harper on April 23, 2022 at 9:16pm

YIKES! These are definitely fakes in (full) bloom. :-(

Note: I have never known Cobain to add a peace symbol to his autograph. Way too cutesy pie for him.

Feel free to compare with this IP Cobain autograph. I am an IP autograph collector in Chicago. I have been collecting in person for over 40 years.

I was fortunate to have gotten Nirvana in Chicago October 1993 during the In Utero tour. They were playing the Aragon Ballroom and were staying at the Double Tree Suites east Michigan Avenue just North of Water Tower. Band signed post show. Surprisingly, I was the only one waiting at the hotel! I'm still kicking myself for not having brought at least a second item with me that night!

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