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Paul McCartney Authentic or NOT

Hello my friend just sent me a picture of this signed item he has found. Is it authentic?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on November 21, 2011 at 4:11pm

I would say no. I dont like the transition from the M to the cC. Just an opinion. If I am wrong I am sure someone will correct me!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 21, 2011 at 5:56pm

I don't think it's real.

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Permalink Reply by A.B. on November 22, 2011 at 12:49am

It looks nothing like the genuine Macca autographs I have seen.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 22, 2011 at 8:18am

Heritage is a good company. Is this in an upcoming auction? If it's in an upcoming auction, third-party authentication (pre-certification) may not take place until right before it goes live. But when they write-up the auction lot it will say pre-certified from day one, and then if it doesn't check out, it gets removed before the auction.

Keep in mind that those of us commenting are just collectors. Give it a few more days and people with more expertise may pipe in.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 22, 2011 at 8:28am

I just checked and it is up for auction, but the auction isn't live yet. Strangely, the photo you uploaded was highly degraded. Here's a much clearer image that will help you get more reliable opinions.

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on November 22, 2011 at 8:35am

Steve, that does help. it looks like a very good attempt, but it also looks like it was slowly written, what do you think?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 22, 2011 at 10:36am

Terrier,

For some reason, the image Kristina uploaded was saved at very low quality, giving it a lot of artifacts; and when she uploaded it, she changed the dimensions to more than twice their actual size, which made the image look really off. Her image is actually only 220 pixels wide, but she stretched it to 497 pixels.

This is the image Kristina uploaded, actual size:

The way she uploaded the image, it looked to me like it was probably traced, or copied extremely slowly. It's an important lesson for me to consider the quality and size of an image when developing an opinion.

Looking at the image I uploaded, you can see the starts and stops of the bubble, showing how carefully he drew it. I think that Paul did sign it, but more slowly than normal, because he wanted to make sure it fit. His autograph is definitely not traced when you see it in a large, clear photo.

The "Paul" itself is classic. The "M" of McCartney looks strange to me, but the rest of the name looks in line. I'm surprised to see him sign his full last name with a Sharpie, but he did seem to put a lot of time and care into signing the pic.

I don't know if Heritage has had JSA authenticate this yet, but from the better pic, I do think it's genuine.

Hopefully Roger will give his opinion.

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on November 22, 2011 at 11:29am

Steve, that is the part of the auto that bothered me also, the M and the transition to the C.....not typical but with Roger's exemplar file, perhaps he has seen this before. But the M is really not typical.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 22, 2011 at 11:56am

I agree, Terrier. But even if an example of that M wasn't in his file, so much of the rest of the autograph falls in line that I think he'd pass it.

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on November 22, 2011 at 1:50pm

this one is challenging. I almost feel you would have to see it in person to really determine the flow. I have about 50 McCartney exemplars I have collected over the years, from sites like Tracks, Frank C's site, etc. this example matches almosts perfectly with one from 1965. Of course they didnt have sharpies back then. I like your theory of the bubble, and him trying to sign within it, but I still think the signature would flow better. I have seen many where he has connected the P to the A, but I havent seen one (and my exemplars are limited, admittedly) where it connects downward like that. usually the top of his "a" lines up pretty well with the bottom loop of the "p" so it normally connects straight across. I know I am opening myself up here to be ripped into, but that is my opinion!