We are an eBay affiliate and may be compensated for clicks on links that result in purchases.

Charlton Heston Secretarial Signature Study

Hi:

At Steve Cyrkin's invitation, I'd like to call your attention to a signature study I've posted on my blog, Charlton Heston signature study by Steve Zarelli.

I believe I have identified the "tell" in Charlton Heston secretarial signatures, and if I am correct, the news is not good for most collectors. It appears that most Heston signed photos are secretarially signed.

Here is a synopsis:

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."

I have attached two images to give you a small sampling.

For more details and images, please visit my blog at the link below.

I'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts on this. I fully anticipate some resistance to the theory, because denial is always the first step. In fact, I would love to be proved wrong, because that would mean I wasn't sitting on a bunch of secretary signed photos!

By way of introduction, I have been collecting since the early 90s and I am the UACC Ethics Director.

I look forward to the discussion.

The Collecting Obsession

Regards,

Steve Zarelli

Tags: Charlton, Forgery, Heston, Secretary, authenticating, autograph, secretarial

2 members like this

Attachments: No photo uploads here

Figure 1.jpg, 60 KB
Secretary 1.jpg, 37 KB

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on August 27, 2018 at 12:15am

Very cool. I love this film too. Soylent Green also. Nice framing job as well with the Omega.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on August 27, 2018 at 3:23am

Very nice!! Great looking display.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on September 10, 2018 at 6:39am

Just a sad note that Mr. Heston's widow, Lydia Clarke Heston, passed away September 3 at age 95.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greg on September 24, 2018 at 1:41pm

Just thought I’d throw another one out there...

I think this ones’ a little nicer than the last one I posted, but still with a messy ending...(I mean I’m still having a hard time trying to figure out the way the pen flowed to form the ‘esto’ part in Heston on the previous one?? )

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on September 24, 2018 at 3:54pm

I think this one is good.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greg on February 6, 2019 at 7:29pm

Ok so here’s another...at first I thought it was a decent fake (as opposed to a secretarial) due to the lack of strong upstroke of the ‘h’ in Charlton, which I’ve never personally seen before in the genuine article (with just an oddly curved downstroke in this example , which I’ve only seen done a couple of times with the ‘Chall’ signatures)...a couple other motions in the signature don’t seem quite typical as well...but after looking at it for a while, now I’m leaning towards the fact it might be just a rushed in-person with yet another version of an authentic Heston! What do you guys think?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on February 7, 2019 at 6:35am

The "Hes" formation is atypical, but otherwise it has many positives and no secretarial indicators. On balance, I'd say positive outweigh atypical traits and it is likely authentic.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greg on February 7, 2019 at 8:29am

Thanks Steve, that’s what I’m leaning towards as well. The lack of strong upstroke on the ‘h’ in Charlton is what really threw me at first though! Have you ever seen another example with that variation?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Herman Darvick on February 20, 2019 at 12:14pm

Thought you'd like to see an authentic Charlton Heston signature at age 28

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greg on May 1, 2019 at 7:44am

Love the properly formed 'H' on that one! I mean ALL the letters are clearly visible! Thanks for the very early example Herman!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greg on May 1, 2019 at 7:56am

Ok, so you guys know I only like to post the atypical ones on here, the ones that really make me scratch my head on and would love to get a few other trained eyes on!

Once again there is no typical upstroke on the first 'h', the 'r' looks like its looped, and that bizarre curved ending flourish...like I said, a real head scratcher! Perhaps a not that bad forgery attempt?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michael Selby on March 8, 2020 at 2:00pm

I know this is an old article but I am just now finding this. Fortunately I have the Topps Planet of the Apes autograph card. Unfortunately 3 of my TTM's I agree are fake.

My question is with signatures like this that have been authenticated by companies such as PSA, Beckett or JSA. I understand that since this they have changed their knowledge base on Heston signatures but what about the ones still floating around out there? Saw one this morning with a JSA sticker and I went to JSA and it was still listed as authenticated.

Seems like they should be doing more. Clearing out their Heston database and offering a free re-authentication should not be out of the responsibility scope for an authentication company.