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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

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by E.B.G. on September 7, 2011 at 4:06pm

Did someone collect these used celebrity shoes?!

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Permalink Reply by DB on September 26, 2011 at 3:32am

while I was trying to sort the mess into an organized mess I came across a copy of the AM Magaine of July 2008 and there he was on the front page - Charlton Heston. The evidence in the article was right in front of us all the time but if anyone questioned a dealer or "opinionator" back then it would have been "no this is authentic" or "no based on his known exemplars this is genuine". Even though, in my opinion, many knew otherwise....

which brings up the point I noted in the "autograph hell" book that I have harped on as well ~ who says these exemplars are legit or in the case of the book, "something has gone terribly wrong - when a non authentic exemplar becomes the accepted authentic one". There are several parts I don't concur with and a major point missed but that is for the other thread but this point of exemplars and how it was accepted s/b a warning to all of us...

The good news is that the next three examples from larry grobel are authentic chars but perhaps someone should let Pauline Kael know that if this is her picture it's a secretarial;

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on September 26, 2011 at 6:19am

DB,

I mentioned this when I first found out about the secretarial...I think I uploaded it to the discussion. The "Chall" was from our stock, and all of the other pieces were signed by Heston in front of Larry Grobel.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on September 26, 2011 at 3:39pm

Wise dealers and collectors take the approach that they begin with the presumption that it is fake, and the burden is to prove it is real. In the Heston case, it seems the opposite view took hold many moons ago.

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Permalink Reply by DB on September 27, 2011 at 12:43am

same reasons as you started with. but, when the news broke appearing reasonable and with some very decent empirical evidence they stopped and pulled thier complete inventory while others did exactly what you stated and just kept selling while others claimed "what study". They then started offering refunds and I know that personally.

Now did anyone go out and do a "real" recall or publish that if you bought one of these from us... Haven't seen anyone do that yet, have you?

that's what makes the studies so important. people need to educate others and leave their "credentials" at the door as that is part and parcel to this "one upmanship" nonsense. If I had a bunch of in-person ones or "authentic" ones and I was going to sell them, I'd have points from this study front & center as part of the offering before the forgers regroup and start churning them out again.

What is more troubling though Mike is this secretarial exemplar became the standard and most likely got life from "through the mail" as you say.

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Permalink Reply by DB on September 27, 2011 at 7:56am

it never ends it appears. tried to locate darren's on a search and only yours is coming up or I need more coffee. Either way, rather than detour this thread let's open one up for AW Music items and present the case(s) and supporting evidence. The 'boys" at aw are/have been pretty reasonable to date.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on September 26, 2011 at 5:06pm

I did...I got snookered back in 2008 when I ran it. To think, if I didn't want a cool image of Heston, I wouldn't have used it and all the autographs in the article would have been A-OK.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on September 26, 2011 at 5:09pm

At that time, we were ALL getting snookered. The important thing to note is, you are among those who can look at it objectively and process new information that runs contrary to old beliefs. Some in the community cannot do that.

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on October 1, 2011 at 11:26am

Beware the fakes on the market, not just the secretarials. Some have small r's.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CHARLTON-HESTON-SIGNED-8X10-PHOTO-STAR-TEN-...

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Permalink Reply by DB on October 1, 2011 at 3:07pm

Brick it appears so from the naked eye but it's an L albeit a small L. This seller has been noted several times and several removed however he seems to be persistent. I'm sure thought that it is just a matter of time until the forgeries start showing up then we will need to key in on other areas. Of course in this case $19.95 s/b a dead giveaway

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Permalink Reply by Brick Hunter on October 1, 2011 at 3:44pm

You're going to make me work a little harder. I just grabbed the first forgery I saw. Here's a Charlton "small r" Heston forgery courtesy of silverscreensignatures and Global Authentics.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Charlton-Heston-8x10-SIGNED-PHOTO-Autograph...

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Price isn't always a giveaway. I've seen some great SP's sell in that $20-$30 range for Heston. Great steals if you ask me. Those "Chall's" make the genuine pieces worth less. I wish eBay would take an active role in the autographs they sell and take this junk off their site. Any five users on here could comb through and remove hundreds if not thousands of just blatant forgeries for sale.

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Permalink Reply by DB on October 1, 2011 at 4:13pm

The problem is that with hundreds of thousands of listings and thousands upon thousands listed daily it doesn't surprise me about EBay slow to react. In some cases they "ain't" to slow but I am sure they have their hands full in the "investigative" dept.

This one, having seen similar before, has given me fits. At first glance it just looks like a sloppy "r" but as we have seen (may have to go back thru the pages and refresh the databanks) Heston made a very distinctive R "most of the time". It appears if it is not a distinctive dbl L then it might get a tpa blessing unfortunately.

Even when blown up I am at a loss to explain what character this eiffel tower type item is suppose to represent because it is purposely shaped not to look like the definitive L to it's right..