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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 Steve Zarelli on March 7, 2011 at 8:54am

I understand completely and it's why I left the door open to feedback.

I will be sending my blog post to a number of my UACC contacts within the next day. I will also email other notable figures in the industry including PSA and Jimmy Spence. As I stated before, I would love to be proven wrong. Then I wouldn't be sitting on a stack of worthless secretarials. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 7, 2011 at 11:51am

No, I did not. Frankly, I am very wary of photos that are described as obtained "in-person." It would have to be from an impeccable source. I'd love to see the in-persons that were obtained through the Autograph Magazine article.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 7, 2011 at 8:39am

This is the Heston I have in Starbrite's inventory. According to Steve's findings it's secretarial. We imaged everything we sold, so we'll be able to see if we sold any secretarials.

Click image to view larger version:

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Permalink Reply by 2ro69jm8dyt5i on March 7, 2011 at 10:45am

Brandon is right. Autograph World has hundreds of these in past auctions. All of what I can see have the R looks that looks like a lowercase "l."

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Permalink Reply by 2ro69jm8dyt5i on March 7, 2011 at 11:10am

Greg- The Stewart looks like his wife's signature. This looks like what Louise Fletcher sends back in the mail too.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 7, 2011 at 11:53am

I'd like further information regarding James Stewart secretarials. I was not aware his wife was signing. Is this documented anywhere?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 7, 2011 at 1:03pm

Me too. I've been pretty careful about avoiding Stewart forgeries. Now all I need to do is learn there were secretarials as well. Maybe I should sell it all now while I still think **something** is authentic. lol :-)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 7, 2011 at 12:00pm

Wehrmann supplied this? I don't see his name, am I missing something?

Michael Wehrmann is a legendary in-person collector and probably the most respected one in the business. I'd expect him to identify items signed through the mail. But his name is not listed in RR's description on this lot.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 7, 2011 at 12:12pm

That's good to know. I think Wehrmann's strictly a supplier of in-person autographs. I don't think he offers authentication opinions but I could be wrong.