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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 Rolf Ramseier on March 11, 2011 at 6:19am

honestly ? I am not interested to communicate in any form anymore with anyone of the UACC officials. I have my reasons for this since 2005.

Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 11, 2011 at 6:10am

Who is this UACC Member? Link please? :-)

I agree that the pic of Heston is earlier than 2002.

By the way, I think the seller probably truly believes he is selling real autographs. However, he is falsely using the "private signing" angle to market them. Until recently, it was essentially a "victimless crime." Now that we find they are not authentic, the victimless crime turns into a more serious form of fraud.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 11, 2011 at 6:31am

on it's way. However, as a collector I don't feel it's a "victimless crime". Just the opposite as when you falsify an offering and knowingly do it - then it is also a testament of your business ethics. Fraudulent Business Ethics ought not to be tolerated on any level.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 11, 2011 at 6:56am

Agreed and I didn't mean to imply it was okay. But I'm sure the perpetrators justified it as a victimless crime because the autographs were authentic -- or so they thought.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 11, 2011 at 9:29am

I don't think it's a victimless crime either. People don't use fake provenance to sell real autographs. Well...maybe 1 out of 1,000 times fake provenance is used.

And even if it was good, the fake provenance would make the customer look like a fraudster when he tried to sell it.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Shinn on March 11, 2011 at 1:11pm

Steve C.....

Checked out Kevin Martin's Book here today.

The 2 Heston's that PSA/DNA have as Exemplars in its "Real-Autographs On-Line" section of their website seem to be extracted from his book.

The Following Exemplars that I just checked On the PSA/DNA site also seem to be extracted from the Martin Book.

Al Pacino
Carol Alt
Charlton Heston
Walt Disney
Kirk Douglas
John Wayne
James Cagney
James Stewart
Clark Gable
Jackie Gleason

It appears that the current subscription based PSA/DNA on-line Exemplar library when it comes to entertainment Exemplars is a duplicate of Martin's Book which has a publication date of 1999.

So when it comes to Heston, PSA/DNA appears to have had the right Exemplar when it came to its On-Line database , but somehow managed to authenticate all those Heston's we see on ebay today , with what appears to be a secretarial Exemplar, based on the great studies that Rolf and Steve Z. have provided .

Just Imagine what could be going on in the Sports Exemplar Database.

Bob Shinn

Permalink Reply by Robert Zarrillo on March 11, 2011 at 9:19am

ebay "bzarrillo" - My Heston, now closed on eBay, had him in a Navy uniform great image but clearly secretarial.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on March 11, 2011 at 10:04am

I would be interested to know what Mr. Heston's secretarial autograph sold for around the time of his passing. Does anyone remember?

This revelation litterally affects thousands of sales. It places the market in an interesting situation.

Ben-Hur is my favorite Non-Indiana Jones movie. Thankfully, I was able to meet Mr. Heston in person when he stopped in my small town for a political appearance many years ago. He graciously signed anything people had. I was able to get 2 photos signed and actually made it on the news with him. I will always think of him as a wonderfil American legend. In fact, I recently watched the 'Secret of the Incas' about 2 days before this study was posted here.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 11, 2011 at 10:30am

Brandon - u should pull those out of mothballs and post tham as there is nothing like real In-Person ones to compare to especially when they are often variations of the theme.

Regardless of how this blows the lid off his use of "secretarials" and the "dbl L" brand he will remain an American Legend for most of us.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on March 11, 2011 at 1:08pm

I intend to as soon as I can slow down. even on the off week, NASCAR doesn't stop.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on March 11, 2011 at 1:29pm

The certified ghost signed Heston's will make for interesting situations in relation to returns I'm thinking.

What do you folks think the best case scenario for these buyers / sellers to utilize is?

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 11, 2011 at 1:49pm

Autograph World is pretty straightforward - and not a problem from what I see. The one I have from them of 10 years ago was easy - just send it back & they'll send a reimbursement.

Now places that haven't "bought" in or are still selling the "dbl L" brand - well you can just imagine what that will be like and then the T&Cs are going to factor in which means that some buyers are going to run an obstacle course, give up because the place they bought it from is going to greatly resist, or be talked out of it being a "secretary" IMHO that is....

This time, I believe PSA/DNA best do something publically as I believe they have screwed up royally and coming from me, that ought to be shot across their bow. If however, this can break on the news (who has a good national reporter they know) then it could force the hand of lot of places.