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STUDY: Jerry Lee Lewis - TTM real or not real

Steve asked me to start a new thread since some were having a lot of issues with regards to whether or not the through the mail autographs of Jerry Lee Lewis are real or not. I will post some examples of what we have been getting recently and some know in person examples. These TTM signatures are not cheap. You have to pay $50 for them to his box office box. The question is are they real or not. Roger has said that he has never seen Mr. Lewis sign this way and it looks to perfect - like a woman's signature.

Please post your thoughts here and examples.

thanks

Mark

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by BallroomDays67 on April 10, 2021 at 12:45pm

Do you agree with Steve that the one signed to Dave appears to be entirely in the hand of JLL? You didn’t say anything about that.

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Permalink Reply by Henry K on April 10, 2021 at 12:57pm

I have already addressed this one... I don’t think this dedication was necessarily done by Jerry Lee.

On March 22, I wrote, “It does look better than the other “God bless you” to me. Still, the sharpie seems to have suffered quite a bit of deterioration between the inscription and the signature. That’s at least somewhat odd...”

I don’t think TTM dedications that may be in a proxy signer’s writing should be used as exemplars.

Permalink Reply by BallroomDays67 on April 11, 2021 at 11:14am

May be? Wouldn’t they definitely have to be in a proxy signer’s writing? There are two other “Sincerely”s that in my opinion are consistent with the one on Dave’s LP. One is on a signed LP that was chosen as one of the five examples of secretarial signatures. The other is on an SP that the seller says was obtained IP, but which is claimed to be a TTM secretarial.

Permalink Reply by Henry K on April 11, 2021 at 11:32am

We have plenty of good examples of IPs in this thread.

In my opinion, pieces that rely on on some seller’s sketchy claim or TTMs that many of (most of) those on this thread believe are secretarial make for really bad exemplars. Your opinion and trust aside, these pieces with no provenance are more likely to take us further away from the answers that we seek.

Permalink Reply by BallroomDays67 on April 11, 2021 at 11:42am

I thought it was agreed that the signatures on Dave’s LPs are authentic. The inscriptions on those LPs would have to be secretarial or it would seemingly be problematic for the TTM secretarial claim. If you aren’t sure about those inscriptions, how can you be sure that the others are secretarial?

Permalink Reply by Henry K on April 11, 2021 at 12:08pm

I believe the others you just posted are secretarial because the signatures look very different from the IPs. Steve Viola said the same. You’re the only one I’ve seen (on this site anyway) who has expressed a view that they’re signed by JLL. You could be right, but you’re definitely not in the consensus on many of these. I wouldn’t be comfortable owning them, and to me the evidence strongly indicates that they’re secretarial.

As for the dedication on Dave’s, sometimes assistants do the dedications. I think oftentimes in the case of JLL, they do both dedications and signatures. Sometimes, they just do dedications.

In any case, using a TTM as an exemplar for another TTM really isn’t helpful. We’d still believe the Heston TTMs (and others) were real if those doing the studies didn’t use in person examples as the basis for judgment.

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Permalink Reply by BallroomDays67 on April 11, 2021 at 12:42pm

Based on my correspondence with the seller, I believe that the signature on the photo was signed in person. It has a “Sincerely” inscription that is consistent with the one on Dave’s LP, in which the signature has been deemed authentic. The inscriptions and signatures on Dave’s signed LPs appear to me to be in the same hand. Steve Viola agrees that both the signature and inscription on Dave’s signed LP on the previous page appear to be in the hand of JLL.

Here’s a link to images of Dave’s TTM signed LPs:

https://live.autographmagazine.com/forum/topics/jerry-lee-lewis-the...

Permalink Reply by Henry K on April 11, 2021 at 1:30pm

I think Dave’s was signed but not necessarily dedicated by JLL, while the seller’s looks like a complete secretarial. I believe others have weighed in, as well.

In the end, I don’t think either has the provenance to be included as an exemplar. I wouldn’t use Dave’s because it’s a TTM, and I wouldn’t use the seller’s because I think he/she is lying about it being an in person.

Permalink Reply by Jason Strecker on April 11, 2021 at 3:32pm

I had a friend on star archive, who has since sadly passed away, who used to insist a Heston with secretarial signature was signed in person. This was years before the 2011 thread on here and I actually didn't believe the ttms were real. His claim was that it was signed backstage at an NRA event but I did feel he was fibbing me on and others on that. Heston seemed to be someone that if he wanted to sign he would at least do so in front of you. This friend posted the picture to the star archive photo database as an in person which automatically logged it as authentic.

Lastly, one thing that I never understood with the Jerry ttms, when charging is doing the trace over inscriptions. Like even if a fan is paying $5 they deserve a good signed item. Though that was in the pre Judith signing days.

Permalink Reply by BallroomDays67 on April 13, 2021 at 4:21pm

JLL signing autographs at home in June of 2018.