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Crumpled Paper or the real Deal?

Sorry, it's me again....A friend of mine from Europe just spent quite a lot of money on a piece of crumpled legal pad and asked me for my opinion AFTER he bought it.....I don't know.....What do uou guys think? (and who's gonna tell him if.......)

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Permalink Reply by Alex Gifford on June 4, 2023 at 10:48am

Genuine.

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Permalink Reply by Alex on June 4, 2023 at 10:53am

Thanks Alex. I've also put it on the Facebook site (yep, I have an account now :) and the opinions are mixed so far.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on June 4, 2023 at 11:14am

It's important to know the provenance, the seller, and what the listing says. A talented forger who studies and practices can come very close, even on a lot of handwriting. A link to the listing and the sellers others items would be valuable A seller known to sell "questionable" autographs is one to avoid, period.

The things that most concern me looking at the document are that the writing is unusually large, the small letters are unusually tall in proportion to the large letters, and the writing is too uniform and well-formed for a crumpled piece of paper. They look like they were written to give to someone. Why would they be crumpled? And why is it so clean with no ageing?

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Permalink Reply by Alex on June 4, 2023 at 11:29am

[Moderator Steve Cyrkin: Reply removed by original poster's request.]

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Permalink Reply by Alex on June 4, 2023 at 11:40am

thank God. I talked him into sending it to an expert and he told me that the money is in escrow and he can get it back if he returns the item within 30 days......I was surprised that he would spend that kind of money without it getting looked at first but now I understand.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Saunders on June 4, 2023 at 11:41am

If it’s fake, it’s a very good fake.

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Permalink Reply by Steve on June 4, 2023 at 12:11pm

First thing I notice is that the letters used throughout the page don’t match up to the same letters in his signature.

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Permalink Reply by Alex Gifford on June 4, 2023 at 12:18pm

I'm fairly familiar with Prince's handwriting and it's very distinctive. Letters in this like the N, T, B, L, S look correct to me. If it's faked then it's quite remarkably accurate.

Plus I'm struggling with a faker writing so much. Seems to me that it's counterintuitive when they could probably just do a convincing "Prince" (on a pre-1988 item) or Love God - P'88 and save themselves a lot of bother.

Point taken about the clean look of the paper. But I'd imagine a faker going to such care would also have thought of that and aged it accordingly. That said, I've got a 1988 Love God signature that hasn't really aged at all as its been carefully stored for 35 years.

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Permalink Reply by Steve on June 4, 2023 at 12:46pm

There is no T, B, L, or S in Prince. I’ll make it easy, look at the letter e in Prince, then match it up to the e in all of the writing.

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Permalink Reply by Alex Gifford on June 4, 2023 at 12:51pm

With respect, that's obtuse. I'm talking about those letters in the lyrics. When I said I'm quite familiar with Prince's handwriting, I meant his handwriting. Not just the various signatures he did over the years.

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Permalink Reply by Alex on June 4, 2023 at 12:52pm

Well, I don't think that's a good point because I don't know too many people that sign exactly with the same letters they use when they write a text....