Authenticity is Everything
Billie Holiday Autograph
I purchased this 78 vinyl record purportedly signed by Billie Holiday from an RACC trusted seller. I recently submitted the item to JSA for authentication, and unfortunately it did not pass.
I originally submitted it in person at a show here in CA a few weeks ago, and I was disappointed by how carelessly the item was handled during intake. When I received it back, there were fingerprints all over it. I contacted JSA immediately to report the condition, and they did expedite the review process.
Yesterday I received their letter confirming that the autograph did not pass authentication. I’m extremely disappointed and unsure what my next step should be, or if anyone here might be able to offer advice.
Prior to purchasing the item, I did my research and examined the signature characteristics—such as the looping of “Billie” and the shape of the “H” in “Holiday.” However, upon further inspection, the signature appears to have been written in ballpoint pen. Additionally, the Blue Ace label is known to be a bootleg label, and this particular pressing seems to have been released slightly before the time of her passing.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on
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Pug, every TPA makes mistakes. Every one of us makes mistakes. And sometimes knowledgeable people disagree on authenticity.
We don't know who at JSA examined it, of course. We know Roger did, and he liked it. I did, very carefully. I am very confident it is real. It was simply signed to look good and fit completely in the space Billie signed in.
You seem emotionally invested in this autograph being a forgery. And your authentication is based on "Holiday", not her entire name. That is not full, proper authentication, period.
We disagree, period.
Ryan gave his conclusion. It's not in the original post; it's in the discussion.
You gave your conclusion.
I gave mine.
If anything new that's truly material comes out, or someone new comes in and reignites the discussion, we can talk about it. If not, all of our arguments have been heard and argued to the point of MAGAs and Lefties in the bar, still arguing Trump at 1:45 AM.
My bar closes at 2. So finish arguing now.
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Permalink Reply by Ryan W on
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Steve, I agree completely. Pug isn’t going to change my mind, and I’m not going to change his.
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Permalink Reply by a pug called eva on
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Steve, I totally agree with you and Ryan. Let's put this discussion to bed.
It's perhaps worth mentioning that I did look at the "Billie" part in a post on 5 April. I'd have been happy to elaborate on the points I made but I'm more than happy not to.
This multi-faceted discussion has given me a lot. Most of all, I've been able to get to know Billie's autograph better than that of practically every other signer whose autograph I own. This, in turn, has allowed me to understand and appreciate my own "Billie" more than ever before. In fact, if I had the necessary IT/graphics skills I would actually quite fancy preparing a signature study for Billie. As far as I know, that would be a first.
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Since this is the only known signed Holiday record, this falls in the $10,000–$15,000 range.
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There are other Holiday records on that site. Not many, but maybe 3 label signed total. I mentioned that.
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2 on the labels, like yours but not as nice
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I had some renewed interest in getting another opinion on my Billie Holiday autograph because there has been so much scrutiny and so many question marks surrounding it.
I recently had Steve Grad take a look at it, and he also declined to authenticate it. Because Roger Epperson physically examined the record in hand and ultimately authenticated it, I went back to Roger and asked him directly if he had noticed something that JSA and Steve may not have, or if he could shed some light on why he felt comfortable authenticating it when others did not.
Roger’s response was basically that, when it comes specifically to Billie Holiday, he feels his experience is considerably greater than anyone at JSA or Steve’s.
I understand and respect Steve’s opinion, and obviously he is extremely well respected in the autograph field. I wouldn’t have asked him to look at the piece otherwise. But I also think there are some important distinctions here that deserve consideration.
Roger physically had the record in his hands before issuing his LOA. To me, that is significant, especially with an unusual Billie Holiday autograph. This isn’t necessarily a straightforward example that can simply be compared to a few familiar exemplars. Her signature and handwriting could vary depending on the period, writing instrument, speed and circumstances of the signing, and the type of surface she was signing.
That is where Roger’s specialization carries weight for me. He has spent decades concentrating specifically on music autographs. Someone with that level of specialized experience may have encountered atypical examples that don’t perfectly resemble the cleaner or more commonly published Holiday signatures most people are accustomed to seeing.
That isn’t meant to take anything away from Steve or JSA. I respect both opinions. I specifically took the time to explain the entire history of this piece to Steve and provided additional photographs because I don’t believe this is a standard situation.
Ultimately, Roger examined the actual record, studied the writing and surface firsthand, and applied decades of experience specifically in music autographs before determining that it was authentic.
I completely understand that respected authenticators can disagree. But disagreement by itself doesn’t necessarily mean Roger is wrong. Considering his specialization and the fact that he physically examined the piece before issuing his LOA, I’m still comfortable with his opinion.
I’d be interested to hear how others here weigh an in-hand examination by a specialist against differing opinions based primarily on photographs, particularly with an unusual or atypical signature like this.
This signature is authentic?
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As you know, I feel strongly that Billie's autograph on the record is real. But I have nowhere near the expertise and experience that Roger and Steve Grad do—I greatly respect them both.
This is simply a difference of opinion among top experts. Seeing an autograph in person is important to confirm that an autograph that looks real is real. But if an autograph looks fake in a good photo, it almost never looks real if you see it in person.
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At this point, I think the “circa 1950” dating of the Continental Room setlist deserves serious re-examination. I would no longer treat March/April 1950 as an established part of the provenance.
The more I have researched this, the more the evidence seems to point toward a mid-1950s Honolulu engagement, quite possibly summer 1956, rather than 1950.
The RR Auction setlist is not actually dated 1950
This is an important distinction.
RR Auction did not have a handbill or setlist bearing a printed 1950 date. Its catalog description states that the Continental Room handbill has “no date but circa 1950.”
In other words, “circa 1950” was an attribution made by the cataloger. It was not written on the artifact itself.
That attribution becomes increasingly questionable when the songs on Billie Holiday’s handwritten setlist are examined against her documented repertoire.
Among the titles are:
- “Too Marvelous for Words”
- “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone”
- “Come Rain or Come Shine”
In the detailed Holiday sessionography, the earliest documented Holiday performance I have located for “Too Marvelous for Words” is October 6, 1953, at Storyville in Boston.
“Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone” and “Come Rain or Come Shine” were recorded during Holiday’s Los Angeles sessions of August 23–25, 1955.
By 1956, these songs unquestionably formed part of her active repertoire. She performed “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone” on television on February 10, 1956, performed it again in Los Angeles on August 13, and continued performing it later that year.
None of this mathematically proves that the Continental Room handbill is from 1956. Holiday could theoretically have performed songs before their earliest surviving documentation.
But when three songs on one setlist have a surviving Holiday performance/recording trail that begins between 1953 and 1955, a 1950 attribution becomes increasingly difficult to accept without additional evidence.
There is independent evidence that Holiday was in Honolulu in 1956
This may be the most important development.
Pianist Eddie Baker’s biography specifically states that he spent an entire month in Honolulu accompanying Billie Holiday in the summer of 1956.
That statement exists independently of my record, the RR Auction setlist, and the autograph-authentication debate.
Holiday’s documented schedule also gives us a reasonable window.
She recorded in New York on June 6–7, 1956 and is definitively back in Los Angeles by August 13, followed by studio sessions there on August 14 and August 18.
If Baker’s recollection of spending an “entire month” accompanying Holiday in Honolulu is accurate, the logical window would therefore fall somewhere between approximately late June and early August 1956 — possibly July.
That remains an inference, not yet a precisely documented engagement date, but chronologically it fits extremely well.
Independent Hawaiian oral history also places Holiday at the Waikiki Sands
There is another completely separate piece of evidence.
Hawaiian entertainer Nohelani Cypriano has described her mother, Leina‘ala Simerson, managing a Hawaiian show at the Waikiki Sands while Billie Holiday was performing jazz there. She recalled the two women eating together during their breaks.
That is significant because it does not merely establish that Holiday visited Honolulu.
It independently connects:
Billie Holiday → jazz performance → Waikiki Sands.
That is precisely the venue associated with the Continental Room handbill.
Blue Ace 227 is where the 1950 theory becomes particularly difficult
The discographical identity of the record itself appears straightforward.
Blue Ace 227 couples:
“Some Other Spring”
Matrix 24877-A
Originally recorded in 1939and
“I’m in a Low-Down Groove”
Matrix 30457-1
Originally recorded May 9, 1941Holiday discographies independently identify those two performances as being issued together on Blue Ace 227.
Blue Ace’s catalog history indicates that the label’s first releases were offered in the May 1950 issue of The Record Changer, and another Holiday Blue Ace release, #205, can specifically be tied to May 1950.
I want to make an important distinction here because I do not want to overstate the evidence:
I have not yet located a primary May 1950 advertisement specifically listing Blue Ace 227.
Collector databases generally date #227 to 1950, but at present I do not have enough primary evidence to assign it an exact day or month.
So the responsible way to describe it is:
Blue Ace 227: 1950 issue; exact release month presently unverified.
That creates a genuine problem for a supposed March 1950 Honolulu signing.
If Blue Ace’s first documented public offerings appear in May 1950, then arguing that Holiday signed Blue Ace 227 in Honolulu in March would require evidence that #227 had already been manufactured and distributed before the label’s documented May launch.
So far, I have found no evidence demonstrating that.
A 1956 Honolulu signing, by contrast, creates no chronological difficulty whatsoever. The record would have been approximately six years old and readily available.
KHON does not create an anachronism
There has also been some confusion regarding the KHON provenance because people understandably encounter the history of KHON-TV, which descended from KONA-TV and adopted the KHON television call letters later.
But that is not the relevant station.
There was already a KHON radio station in Honolulu.
Hawaiian radio histories place KHON among the postwar Oahu stations operating beginning in the 1940s, and surviving 1951 KHON/KIPA letterhead for the Aloha Broadcasting Company confirms the KHON name was in use well before the television station adopted it.
Therefore, provenance referring to someone “with KHON” would be entirely plausible in either 1950 or 1956.
KHON does not make the provenance anachronistic.
Where I think the evidence stands now
I think the strongest historically defensible version of the provenance is now something along these lines:
The Blue Ace 227 record was issued in 1950. Billie Holiday is independently documented performing in Honolulu for approximately a month during the summer of 1956, and independent Hawaiian oral history places her performing jazz at the Waikiki Sands. A surviving Billie Holiday handwritten setlist exists on the reverse of a Continental Room/Waikiki handbill. Although RR Auction cataloged that handbill as “circa 1950,” the artifact itself is undated, and several songs appearing on Holiday’s setlist do not enter her documented performance/recording chronology until 1953–1955. KHON radio was operating in Honolulu throughout this period.
To me, that is considerably stronger — and more cautious — than simply repeating the traditional claim that Holiday played the Continental Room in March or April 1950.
There is also one particularly interesting possibility.
The RR Auction handwritten setlist and this Blue Ace record may not simply be two Billie Holiday artifacts associated with the same Honolulu venue.
They could plausibly originate from the same mid-1950s Honolulu engagement.
I am not suggesting that can be claimed as fact yet. It cannot.
But I do think the evidence has reached the point where the possibility deserves serious investigation.
The real “smoking gun” now would be a dated 1956 Honolulu Advertiser or Honolulu Star-Bulletin advertisement, review, entertainment listing, or column specifically placing Billie Holiday at the Continental Room/Waikiki Sands.
If that turns up, it could potentially connect the independent Eddie Baker chronology, the Waikiki Sands oral history, the RR Auction setlist, and the record provenance into one coherent historical timeline.
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