Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Markus Fischer on July 27, 2020 at 3:24am

Hi Karsten,

as an Elvis fan I would say: very interesting items indeed :-) I do not know the seller but I would dare to say the ones you put here are authentic. I find so many similar traits compared with the ones I own. By the way, I paid a similar price for a signed LP.

I was curious and just looked up the autographs on ebay directly: however, one of the many Elvis items offered by this seller in my opinion is a secretarial one (Lamar Fike?) - I mean exactly the one put up on sale as "Elvis Presley small Original Paramount Photo hand signed on back by Elvis" (not pictured above!).

But, as I said, the ones above look good to me. Any other opinions? Very curious...

Kind regards

Markus

PS: To improve my skills on Elvis' autgraphs, I ordered the Al Wittnebert study via the UACC homepage quite a long time ago. Would anybody know if UACC is not really responding/working well these days? I never received it... :-(

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Permalink Reply by Karsten on July 28, 2020 at 2:21am

Hi Markus, 

Thank you for your nice and detailed answer. However, I personally don't believe that all Elvis autographs are real. But maybe there will be other opinions. Let's see. That - Lamar Fike? - Elvis' autograph I recognized as wrong too.

Thanks again,   Karsten 

PS: By the way, I got my Al Wittnebert Study quickly.

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Permalink Reply by Markus Fischer on July 29, 2020 at 9:24am

Hello Karsten,

oh, I see... This makes me even more curious! Why do you think so? Any certain characteristics or traits? Would love to hear your or other peoples' opinions.

Judging from your name, I guess you are German like me...

I just think I sort of sense a general devaluation of "German" autographs signed in Elvis' Army time 1958-1960 here around Bad Nauheim.

In this context, I so often come across the name of Hans Bakker, who obviously was/is? a famous forger. Is there any recent information or a "study" about this scum guy? I would like to learn more about him, because I own several "German" Elvis autographs I always believed to be 100% authentic. And they look very very similar to the ones above...?!?

I got mine from trusted sources (Markus Brandes Autographs, or the GEPE German Elvis Presley Exhibition/museum), but I feel more and more uncomfortable with them.

I checked out this website for the "Bakker style", but found only few comments by Roger Epperson from around 2010.

Hopefully this Bakker guy had meanwhile been arrested or at least finally convicted for his dirty deeds.

But I am still convinced that there are hundreds of honest "German" Elvis autographs out there from honest people - taking into account that in those days, the world's biggest superstar signed autographs more or less every evening from 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. in front of his rented home Goethestr. 10...

Just imagine! This would be absolutely unimaginable nowadays...

I mean, all the contemporary witnesses like Claus-Kurt Ilge, Sigrid Schutz etc. went there almost every day and got their more than 300 autographs - first hand from the King.

What do you - or others - think about all this?

Thanks in advance for your time and effort

Kind regards

Markus

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Permalink Reply by Karsten on July 29, 2020 at 4:12pm

Markus, 

if you have yours from Markus Brandes everything is fine. He only sells good items that are checked with a return guarantee. Brandes has a very good reputation. This autograph should therefore be real.

Compare that to the other source.

Or even better show them here. You will always get an honest opinion here.

Best regards,   Karsten

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Permalink Reply by Markus Fischer on August 7, 2020 at 4:47am

Hi Karsten, hey colleagues,

thanks for your comments. I certainly know that Markus Brandes is a trustworthy source for high quality autographs. This is why a bought a lot from him.

But I also know for sure that he buys from e.g. GEPE (German Elvis Presley Exhibition) i.e. the former Museum in Dusseldorf! This is where I also acquired a couple of Elvis autographs directly.

I appreciate your offer that I am welcome to post my autographs here and you would have a look.

So this is what I do now below - thanks in advance for your short comments like "likely real" or "likely unreal" according to the numbers.

I am very curious what you think about those 12 signatures.

For a better analysis, I removed the backgrounds of all the images with a photoshop tool so that the signature is "stand alone" only.

Sometimes this was hard to do resulting in some blurry areas or thicker lines (when on dark background).

Highly appreciate your comments/evalutaions! Check out the loops, the style etc.

My best regards and have a sunny weekend

Markus

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Permalink Reply by terrier8HOF on July 29, 2020 at 10:47am

I wouldn't be comfortable owning any of these examples

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Permalink Reply by Karsten on July 29, 2020 at 3:56pm

Same with me terrier8HOF. Better stay away. 

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Permalink Reply by Danny fisher on August 2, 2020 at 2:04am

Some of those look dubious to me..ask rich consola ...he knows lots about Hans Bakker..

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Permalink Reply by Richard Booth on August 2, 2020 at 2:15am

They all look too perfect for me. I would certainly be very cautious.

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Permalink Reply by Karsten on August 3, 2020 at 1:47am

Thank you all for your opinions. 

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Permalink Reply by Mr Mojo Risin on August 7, 2020 at 6:10am

Elvis is very hard to authenticate... without a good background for the autograph and without a dedication... because the dedication is important for see "the sign" or the hand od Elvis. For me Elvis autograph is easy to fake...

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Permalink Reply by Danny fisher on August 7, 2020 at 6:22am

I agree..some people don’t like dedicated autographs...I do..then I research the other hand writing...it’s not fool proof because Bakker could write whole letters but they could be spotted as fake...he did a good job though...basically the more writing the more to compare...some forgers don’t know how someone would write Susan for example..only the signature...I have a Beatles signature from tracks uk (a top authentication company) for someone called Susan...then after a lot of searching I found another signed by ringo, to a different Susan, autograph and it’s very close...
I was offered a fake elvis owned Germany drivers manual...two signatures...and vernon..

I asked rich consola..he knew it was fake but the signatures looked spot on really...

he’s my go to guy for elvis...

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