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Authenticity is Everything
Idiot autograph vandal on the loose!
While perusing eBay listings today, I ran across the seller "patriotsfan10" who seems to have been a pretty regular customer at R&R and Heritage...and now they need to ban him!
This cretin has made a habit of buying complete historic letters of famous Americans and then cutting them to bits so he can sell one and two word segments on eBay!
Just look at a typical description:
Quote:
"You are bidding on a word clip handwritten by John Hancock. This is a rare, unique gift for those who admire John Hancock and/or American History! Why pay $7,000-12,000 for a Hancock letter when you can purchase authentic handwriting by John Hancock right here for just a small fraction of the price?
This Hancock handwritten clip consists of the following: " Intitled "
The handwritten clip is **Guaranteed Authentic** - it was clipped from a letter to the General Assembly completely written by Hancock as Governor of Massachusetts in 1782 (immediately following the Revolutionary War). We personally cut the handwritten clip from that very document. The document was purchased from R&R Auction (rrauction.com) and was originally part of the Hancock-Chase collection housed at the National Museum of American History. Please note that you are NOT bidding on the Hancock letter to the General Assembly.
You ARE bidding on the following items (all of which are pictured below):
- The clip that reads " Intitled ", handwritten by John Hancock himself.
- Color photocopy of the original COA from R&R Auction for the Hancock letter to the General Assembly.
- Color photocopy of the original PSA/DNA Letter of Authenticity (LOA) for the Hancock letter to the General Assembly.
Unquote
This vandal has also destroyed letters and documents by James Buchanan, George Pickett, Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, Rutherford B. hayes, Grover Cleveland, Franklin Roosevelt, Franklin Pierce, and who knows whom else!
Now, I can understand breaking up a lock of hair, a block of wood, or a tattered flag, and on one or two occasions we've offered a few words in George Washington's hand (a letter that was cut-up years ago), but for anyone in this day and age to go out, buy a historic letter and chop it into tiny bits to sell on eBay is just criminal.
If anyone knows who this greedy, ignorant jackass is, I'd like to know so that I can refuse his bids. Please let me know by email, or better yet expose him here!
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Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on December 14, 2010 at 3:27pm
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It's like cutting up an old master and selling it by the square inch. Horrendous.
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Comment by Mike P on December 14, 2010 at 3:27pm
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pathetic.....ruining history just for sheer profit
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Comment by Richard S. Simon on December 14, 2010 at 5:09pm
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Nothing I see anymore in this hobby surprises me when it comes to subhuman behavior.
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Richard, I couldn't agree with you more.
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What I find amazing is that many hundreds of people have bought these tiny slices from him.
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Comment by Josh Board on December 15, 2010 at 10:24am
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It's like that bastard that took perfectly good bed sheets, and cut them up. All because The Beatles slept in them!
Just think -- those sheets could've been keeping people warm for decades and decades now!
I dunno, fellas. This story just doesn't bother me all that much. I mean, he's an idiot. But, the people buying the words are bigger idiots. Do they think ONE WORD written by a person like that, is going to go up in value? If they want to invest, they should buy the original letter themself.
And did this guy really do his math properly? Is buying a letter for $800 from R&R, worth cutting up a bunch of words, and selling them individually? If it is, and he's making a profit -- more power to him.
But, let's take the example Mr. Cyrkin uses below.
A Van Gogh painting found in an attic somewhere, would sell for $50 million. Now, would cutting it up into squares sell for more. Nope. Not even close.
So, if you're that offended by a guy doing this, go buy the letters yourself. Give them (or lend them) to a museum in your town, for others to enjoy. And in a few years, take them back and you've probably got something worth a little more, too.
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Comment by Rick Badwey on December 15, 2010 at 12:49pm
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He is proving that P.T. Barnum was right. Some of these letters look like they can be clipped form anyone's old letter.
The idiot threw the bait and got some takers
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Comment by Joseph Perino on December 16, 2010 at 7:03am
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If he is cutting up the real letters, he is only doing what the trading card companies have been doing for over a decade now. I remember the outrage the first time Upper Deck cut up a Babe Ruth bat, if it really was indeed Babe Ruth's bat. The precedent for this sort of thing was set long ago. I'm surprised some trading- card company didn't think of it first, and decided to glue the words to a trading card to create an instant collectible. Destroying history for a buck, tricking people out of a buck, it's simply part of the new capitalism that pervades the hobby for sure, and the country as a whole.
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An example of what Topps did not long ago, cutting an Andrew Jackson autograph in half to fit it on a card and slicing off parts of it at the end.
Nice work Topps. :(
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You just have to puke at the audacity of the following words in his ad:
"Why pay $7,000-12,000 for a Hancock letter when you can purchase authentic handwriting by John Hancock right here for just a small fraction of the price?"
P. T. Barnum is alive and well and living on ebay.
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