Authenticity is Everything
Beatles and Cassius Clay autographed glove
The story is that the Beatles and Cassius Clay signed two boxing gloves, February 18th, 1964, when they met. One glove was auctioned some time ago. The other is with a memorabilia store I visited a few days ago. I had never heard of this item, and have a picture. The signatures of the Beatles look very good! Of course, signing on a boxing glove has got to pose some problems for an authenticator. Has anyone heard of these gloves? What is the opinion of our experts? I asked for provenance. Owner will only say it was obtained in a "collection" and the store (which is well known) will give COA and guarantee. They will not say who obtained the autographs or the circumstances. The glove is being sold, authenticated by a "well known" authenticator we all know. What I find interesting, is that the signatures look very good, and seem to compare very well with the Beatles autographs from around 1964.
Tags: art of music, beatles-cassius, boxing, clay, glove, signed
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Trapper9990 on
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Hello,
I cant comment to much on the glove because its on leather which is slightly dark but the seller sounds very suspicious. If that item were real, it would be worth alot of money, and i mean alot. Probably well over the 10 and maybe even 20 mark. To be able to have the beatles and Ali on one historic piece which is one of a kind and represents a distinct known event in each celebrities history, would be amazing. And one thing i can almost guarantee is that such an historic item, would have a very well documented history and provenance. I have never heard of these 2 gloves before but that doesnt mean they dont exist. But the story is just so fishy i would completely stay away. If those were real, that shop owner would know their story in and out because he would know the gold he had in his store and want to sell it to the highest bidder. Especially with an historic item like that, you would need far more than just a COA from someone we all know. That right their is just as fishy. That guy should be willing to photocopy you a pic of the COA or at the least tell you who it is and when it was certified, etc. Odds are its from coaches corner, or chris morales, or someone like that who is a known forger. The way the owner is acting gives it away to me that the item is fake and he knows it. I would run far away unless he will give you more info. Now if he comes back and says it comes with a frank caizzo coa, then id get a little exctied and id contact frank at his website to make sure he certed it. Their have been times when people have created fake Caizzo certificates so you always have to double check on items this valuable. Other than that, if its not certed by JSA, PSA, R and R, heritage, juleans, or roger epperson, i wouldnt touch it. Roger Epperson could probably tell you flat out if its real via his quick opinion option. Their are some great beatles forgers out their, and with this seller giving you the run around, id say its a forgery, but hopefully some members here can tell you more.
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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on
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I hope you guys don't mind me throwing in my two cents.
Trapper makes some great points. An item as rare as that would be a gold mine if authentic. The owner of that item should be going out of his way to show and prove the authenticity of such a rare and unknown item.
Without blinking an eye, I'd be suspicious of the owner's actions.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on
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Memory Lane sold a Beatles signed baseball about a year ago for $82,500. There are perhaps 5 of those, and they don't have Clay on them. If the autographs on that glove were genuine, it wouldn't be hard to get well over $100,000 for it. $200,000 wouldn't be a surprise.
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And you're right, an item like this would have a traceable provenance. Not some anonymous collection. What's the story on it?
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Permalink Reply by Sidney Fields on
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Steve is right.
The equation is simple: no provenance = no sale.
And the mere fact that the seller won't reveal the story behind the item should be enough to make anyone run out of the store.
What's the big secret? Anyone who obtained this item should be very proud to tell the tale, right?
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"And the mere fact that the seller won't reveal the story behind the item should be enough to make anyone run out of the store."
Agreed
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Mike,
We've had this talk before. Please stop yelling at people if you want to be a member here. Regarding the glove, if you read Ranjan's post, he said that the store told him it was one of two boxing gloves signed by the Beatles and Clay (Ali) on Feb. 18, 1964. A glove like that would obviously have provenance.
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Mike,
If you wanted to know who was selling the item and who was the authenticator, all you had to do was ask, not question my motives. I think the others respected my wish to keep the information to myself, because the objective of this forum is to help each other and not necessarily jeopardize our ability to get information from sellers and share it with some discretion. Throwing names can hurt that objective. Again, you seem to be putting words in my mouth. I said the signatures looked good and never said I thought they were real. If I thought it was real, I would have bought it!
I must also protest that you think I am hiding something. That's getting personal, isn't it? If you can not separate discretion from hiding something, I think you have a problem. For Steve, the others and you (if you can be objective), the COA was from CM. I asked if I could pay to have someone else look at it. They mentioned a name I was not familiar with (and had not heard before - they said it was a forensic expert), but would not send the item out to anyone else prior it being paid for. And Trapper and Steve - yes, they want more than 15 but much less than 100k. I too put the value of this at 100k+ if it was the real thing.
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Mike, i think you need a cool down. Please tell me where anyone went off the hinges in my comment? Did i yell at people or accuse anyone of anything? No, and i actually believe thats exactly what you did above. I like your comments on alot of things but your out of line here. i stated my opinion as to why i thought it was fishy and a one of a kind beatles item that has been sold at least once, to a retail store, will indeed have alot of providence. If it was the guy himself selling the glove than it would be different, as you said, alot of good items dont have providence. But what you can take all the way to the bank, is that the guy who purchased that item for that store had that item looked at. He purchased it knowing it was a unique beatles item, and it only takes 2 seconds of searching on the internet too see what an ordinary beatles piece is worth. Obviously he would know what hes got and get as much info together for the buyer as possible. If he couldnt get any info than thats all he had to say, but you can guarantee he would know at least what the previous owner told him. And that is obviously not what this customer was told. Instead, from what we were told, the seller simply didnt give any more info, and not that he just didnt know. So my assumptions and comments seem pretty reasonable based upon those assertions. But no where in this comment did I go off the deep end or off the hinges what so ever. Again, thats actually what you did, as nobody in this thread, including the author has shown one hint of trying to deceive anyone or pull one over on anybody, and since we dont know the full story of this conversation between the seller and the author, their is no way you can accuse him of not giving us any info. I think you know your stuff about autographs Mike, but you are way out of line here.
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Thank you Trapper. I have told you that the authenticator was CM. I have not told you the store. Just so everyone is clear, I asked if the present owner had anything - who was the person who asked for the signatures, who was there, anything that would tie the item to the actual event, a letter from the person who first had the item etc. Did I miss anything? The answer was that those were not necessary because someone sold several items at the same time, and under those circumstances the kind of information I was looking for was not necessary. To clarify my point I asked the representative "If I brought you a signed Beatles album, would you not want the background information I had"? He said not really, because most sellers did not want to deal with the "history" and information about the item - What mattered was authentication by forensic experts. If they could get that (as they had in this case), they needed nothing more! Of course, it did not make sense to a simple guy like me!
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Mike,
I did not want to name names at this time. I was happy to get a picture from them, and if we start throwing names around, my concern is that good sellers will be reluctant to send out images as this one did, in this case. As for your comment that "..a lot of REALLY CHOICE items out there just come with the "i got this from my grandfather. i don't know much about it." story" - Of course that is true. But this is different. The Beatles were taken to see Cassius Clay and this was an unscheduled visit. The story is that the Beatles did not know who Cassius Clay was when they were taken to see him. If only 2 gloves were signed, someone "inside" must have initiated this. Someone saw this - It was not someone in the public - they don;t carry used boxing gloves. This is a boxing glove, not a piece of paper - It is harder to authenticate. I will accept an autograph that is said to have come from Mary Little who lives in Liverpool and said "I got this from my grandfather", but this is a completely different situation. This was a historic event. You probably do not know that Sonny Liston refused to see the Beatles. The Beatles were not even aware their meeting with Liston was switched and were later described as"...fed up and left angry bitter...." Remember, Clay was not yet a champion and was to fight Liston a few days later, and was not given a chance by many. There were no pictures to autograph (although some to be famous pictures were taken that day). I do not believe there are any autographs of all four Beatles and Clay on paper. How did they sign these two gloves? Would you not want to know?
Mike, I am sorry you think I am giving anyone the run around or maybe even making this up! I did include a picture, didn't I? I did not feel that your comments were very objective or that your personal assessment of my motives are not helpful or in the sprit of this forum.
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It's called full disclosure. If one has a question on item - 1. post the item. 2. name the store/site/auction/aunties attic etc... that it came/or might come from. 3. if it has a coa then post the coa (or describe it or denote what has or hasn't been provided). If there is or isn't any provenance then add it into the picture.
Don't make it some sort of Stephen King novel or the need to enlist charlie chan and #1 son. This beating round the bush is nonsense. Then if there is anecdotal evidence it gets added. if there is a site, then add the url.
The best approach is as Sgt. Joe Friday would say, "just the facts" as we know them. It really is simple and we don't need to engage in a game of Clue.
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