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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 Bob Shinn on March 23, 2011 at 2:44pm

Wanna talk about out of touch, check out the following response to my email regarding the Wayne signature on ebay:

First off this is from a well known in person collection by famed photographer Ed Geller that over a 40 year period he collected in person
Secondly this is authentic and matches KNOWn exemplars both in print and our files of a later 70's John signature
My book printed a 1940's early John signature and everyone signature changes every six months or so during their lifetime
Even the peculiar way he dated things is present in this piece also the age of the ink and paper matched which automatically made it secretarial AT BEST not a forgery because it wouldnt have passed those particular tests
Globals COA means nothing to me and you are right it should mean nothing to you but Ebay has stranglehold on sellers using one of the three JSA PSA or GAI in order to list and even then they often argue among themselves
I issue MY COA in addition to GAI COA as stated and I stand behind this autograph and my 28 years as an authenticator in only entertainment autographs
Who are you and what books and articles have you published Id like to look them up?
Sincerely
Kevin Martin/CEO
Piece of the Past Inc

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Permalink Reply by Robert Zarrillo on March 23, 2011 at 12:06pm

I know a poster dealer who regularly lists a particular movie poster on ebay for a million dollars. No poster has ever sold for over a few hundred thousand. On this Heston - assuming Martin was not aware of this study - what indeed would inspire him to ask such a ridiculous price? Could he really expect to get it? I think he's really just trying to "push up the value" - not really to that level - but to get them over $100 where they probably belong. As to the "LLs" he's to be sure one of the many caught up short on that one!

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Permalink Reply by Robert Zarrillo on March 24, 2011 at 7:32am

Received my Alaska and Moses SPs yesterday. If not for all the work done here I never would have thought to get these - thanks to all! Sharing ideas and indeed pointing out worthwhile deals is another great outcome of this site.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 24, 2011 at 7:35am

Mine just arrived. Looks good.

The COA is from "Autographed Memorabilia." Was that the company that actually conducted the private signing?

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on March 24, 2011 at 11:09am

I hope this will interest some of the collectors here. I have never requested an autograph through the mail for any actor or actress. Back 2009 I had a nice ten-minute phone conversation with Joyce Randolph who played Trixie on the Honeymooners (my favorite show of all time). The phone conversation came after I had sent her a letter about a set of Honeymooners autographs sold on the Coach's Corner auction site. Shortly after I wrote her, she called me and left a message on my answering machine (I still have the message) and I returned her call and we spoke.

Well, just last week I wrote her a letter and in the letter I wrote about my favorite episodes on the Honeymooners. Well today I received the below letter from Ms. Randolph. Wow!!!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on March 24, 2011 at 11:22am

Very nice.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 24, 2011 at 12:01pm

Great get.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 25, 2011 at 1:29am

Just so it's clear Markus I suggested that this thread become a featured article for AMLive giving credit to Steve the Zip as well as Roth's orignal viewpoint. It would also be nice to know why the original study didn't tale off and lied dormant for over a decade. During that time period many non-authentic ones were sold and bought (I can attest to the latter) even though according to others here it was suspect.

and as we have seen here - there are still some who are gonna continue to sell these and not-endorse the findings in order to run their unfounded smears. And we will watch buyers who subscribe to the barnum and bailey theory waiste their $$. Unfortunately, that is what goes on in these "stupid autograph wars".

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Permalink Reply by Markus Brandes on March 25, 2011 at 1:52am

It was also a big surprise for me that it took nearly 10 years that Charlton Heston's secretary signature had not be discussed earlier. For example why did the UACC Pen&Quill refused to publish many of those findings which had been already published on www.ISITREAL.com ?

They had the opportunity and everybody is allowed to use or publish them with a credit to the original author !

Which cases coming next which are well known in for those who are interested in authentication and sharing knowledge ? Maybe Liz Taylor or the many forgeries still sold from the Danger film secretary office (see also Rolf Ramseier's excellent study and detailled finding's ?)

Instead of this really dangerous and stupid "autograph war" we have to keep together and educate each other. Most dealers still have no reference library or do deep researches or work on such studies like Rolf did many times.

I meet nearly every two weeks with Rolf Ramseier to discuss authentication topics and we have more than 100 autograph related books and around 300.000 signature samples in file. Does others (particular autograph societies and clubs) have a reference library and why they rarely publish secretarial topics ? The International Autograph Society (which is getting more and more into English) does in nearly every issue !

This could be a start of a new discussion but is no benefit for the autograph community.

Markus

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Permalink Reply by Mike Sibley on March 27, 2011 at 2:25pm

Just thought I would add a few more words to this very interesting article on Charlton Heston's signature. I'm sure the following won't convince everybody out there regarding the Heston TTM secreterial signatures, but here are a few more items from my collection that will hopefully force some of the dealers out there to sit up and take a look...

Here is the Love Letters poster I had signed by both Mr. and Mrs. Heston in 1999 at the Haymarket theatre stage door in London. I managed to find some of my photos taken on the day (on film, so apologies for quality) and the shot below the poster shows, although the poster cannot be seen, he put it up against a door to make it easier to sign. Mrs. Heston was lovely and happy to sign it. When you see her style of writing I find it hard to believe she was responsible for signing his TTM photos. Poster clearly shows 'Char'....

Also here is a photo of him signing a 10x8 for another fan. It is particularly good to see as it shows him in mid flow signing the first part of his name. I have put the photo here and then cropped it and turned it over. It clearly shows he has just written the 'a' and is flowing into the 'r'...

Finally, there are still some genuine Heston signatures out there and can be picked up for very reasonable prices. I won this one on Ebay last week and including shipping, I paid £12.00, which is around $19 or $20.

I would be pleased to hear if anyone has any comments etc - Mike.

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Permalink Reply by DB on March 27, 2011 at 2:49pm

Mike, what's important is the consistency of all of this. What is so surprising is how the original study missed this more than obvious and thankfully the zipper picked up on it,,, Of course, I suspect the original study by Rolf will play a more interesting role in the future and those in existence that are in the grey area although I have difficulty in clearing seeing it. IT's also a good bet to get the Hestons while they are still reasonable and before the forgery market figures it out.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Sibley on March 27, 2011 at 3:02pm

DB, I couldn't have put it better myself - you are spot on regarding picking up the genuine Heston's now. I have never looked at the forgery aspect in great detail, but I'm sure you guys must have seen this unpleasant side of the hobby with a number of different signatures over the years. I will certainly be keeping a close eye on things from now on. I have collected Mr. Heston's signature for quite some years now, so feel pretty confident that I will be able to spot a Heston forgery - time will tell....