Three Stooges - Authentic?

This is an original lobby card for The Three Stooges Meet Hercules. It's also signed by Samson Burke, who played Hercules. Any opinions on the Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe DeRita signatures?

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Permalink Reply by Eddy on November 26, 2023 at 11:14am

Stooges signatures are not real, unfortunately. They are most definitely off.

The Samson Burke looks to be dated as from 2002. My suspicion is that someone added the Stooges after the Burke signature. Actually, not even quite sure if that's real or not. It may have been copied from this:

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 26, 2023 at 3:36pm

Curley Joe died in 1952 and the Sharpie came out in 1964 so there's a chance that this isn't real.

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Permalink Reply by Eddy on November 26, 2023 at 4:01pm

I think you might be thinking of the original Curly who died in 1952.

Curly-Joe didn't die until 1993. Nonetheless, I still believe these aren't real. They just look like they were drawn by someone who knows the fundamentals... but didn't quite get it together right.

p.s. To make things even more confusing, sometimes Moe even signed for all three.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 26, 2023 at 5:27pm

I am thinking of the original. That is the same

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on November 26, 2023 at 4:06pm

The lobby card is copyrighted 1961.

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Permalink Reply by Will McIntosh on November 26, 2023 at 4:40pm

Eddy, your p.s. got me looking around, and I found this on Lelands, with all three signatures attributed to Moe Howard. Notice "To Our Good Friend." Could this be an all-Moe example?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 26, 2023 at 5:29pm

The Larry is the same as the Moe-signed secretarial.

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Permalink Reply by Eddy on November 26, 2023 at 5:37pm

Honestly Will, I don't believe this is even an all Moe. Moe's own supposed signature on the lobby card is weird looking.

Here's a fan photo signed by Moe, Larry and Curly-Joe in blue ballpoint inks. The black signatures are pre-printed.

I've personally never seen anything authentically joint-signed all in black felt tip like this lobby card.

Curly-Joe did not stack his signature like on the lobby card and he always included a hyphen. Larry's 'signature' on this is just plain awful. That elongated "L" is goofy looking.

imho, take a hard pass on this.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 26, 2023 at 5:48pm

So that would mean that the one called a Moe-signed secretarial was not signed by Moe, is that right?

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Permalink Reply by Eddy on November 26, 2023 at 6:01pm

I can't even make out the Leland's scan very well...it's so low resolution and blurry.

Here's one that RRauction identifies as being signed by Moe for all 3:

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on November 26, 2023 at 6:11pm

This looks very much like the one you posted above, Eddy, which is not similar to the OP.

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Permalink Reply by Eddy on November 26, 2023 at 6:26pm

Moe was excellent at signing for all three and making them look convincing (he had a lot of practice over the years). One little difference is that he didn't often join the 'L' and 'a' in Larry like Larry himself usually did at the top of the 'a'.