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I was browsing on Ebay yesterday, looking around the upcoming Elvis memorabilia auction being conducted by Graceland under the auspices of their "Graceland Authenticated" appraisal service, and found this:
The inscription is on a 1975 tour promotional photo.
Here's the full listing: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Elvis-Presley-Signed-and-Inscribed-1975-Sou...
It's a good example of an Elvis signature --but not by Presley himself. It has numerous features indicative of a secretarial proxy signature... The smoother flow, the separation of the "P" from the "s", and the glaringly obvious large, loopy "y" at the end that almost appears like a fat, cursive "g".
Examples of proxies like this show up all the time, and are usually the result of an item that had been mailed to Graceland by a fan in hopes that Elvis could sign it, which he only periodically did, while the bulk of the requests were filled by his secretarial staff...This is more than clearly one of them. (Side note-- these items are not coming from Graceland's own collection, rather they're from private collectors who have arranged their listings to be part of the auction) And unfortunately, as years go by and these make it to market, it's also obvious many of the owners who obtained them have gone all this time actually thinking they got back a true Presley signature.
What I'm really puzzled by is how this slipped by the estate's own authenticators, especially given the fact that in this same auction there are numerous genuine samples that show how starkly different this one is; even a non-expert could pick this out ...yet here it is, being offered with a start bid of $1,500 and their estimate of value at $3,000 - $5,000.
Just putting this out there for thoughts, and to see if anyone knows who Graceland commissions to do their evaluations --it likely isn't Mr. Epperson or Mr. Consola --they'd laugh this off, I'm sure.
How sad is it that the people responsible for conserving Elvis' own estate would allow an error this clear to take place?
Dan, I have to take some issue with a couple of points you made there -- if Elvis' secretarial staff were all that good at mimicking his signature, we wouldn't have this thread to begin with -- the secretarial signings like the one that I started the thread with stand out like sore thumbs due to the all the discrepancies. If anything, his secretaries really made no good effort to duplicate him at all... and likewise the Mafia guys. Unless you're suggesting that pieces that have gotten authenticated by Epperson, PSA, and others over the years were so good even they were fooled (?)
And about the check ledgers -- I do see some noticeable similarities to Elvis' writing on those like Timothy did -- which begs the question: If all these were were private check ledgers as opposed to checks that would pass through others' hands, what purpose would it serve one of his guys or a secretary to attempt to duplicate Elvis' writing on them? I can't find the logic there.
Steve,
Thank you! But I don't bought checkbook, I have only one stub from this checkbook :) Anyway thanks for your opinion! It's hard to understand, but we will never know truth about it. I think my stub have a chance 1/3 to be a real thing (authentic / very good fake / or it was made by someone from Memphis Mafia). Unfortunately, no one can say for sure.
http://news.yahoo.com/more-170-elvis-artifacts-auctioned-graceland-...
The items are still being promoted by some media sources.
Now as the auction has apparently closed down, here's a look at what the remaining --and more likely, legitimate autograph pieces went for:
https://auction.graceland.com/Category/Autographs-15.html
And a number of them going well in excess of what had been the estimated value.
The primary auction page with all categories--
http://auction.graceland.com/catalog.aspx
There was one item that may be of special interest to some here - a 1956 airline counter check, filled out by Elvis:
http://auction.graceland.com/1956_Elvis_Presley_Signed_American_Air...
I would assume that in March of '56, this would have been well before Elvis really had anyone else he could rely on to proxy sign things for him, and is much more likely to be his own writing. He was still years away from being surrounded by the Mafia guys and other hangers-on. Worth noting for comparison how his "E.A. Presley" synchs up with his later 1960's and 1970's personal checks. He appears to have developed early on a check writing style that really doesn't resemble much else - be it autographs, documents, or even the Nixon letter.
And lets not forget the buyers fee they tack on the final price.
The whole thing had me shaking my head and really made Graceland look not so smart in my book.
Mark
Patricia,
And how we can to trust to Auction at Graceland if they sold several "strange" autographs (thanks God that they deleted some of those autographs before auction start). Terrible situation.
About Elvis's writing.
I just want to say that his writing with 70's became worse. Letter to Nixon - this is one of the worse writing which I ever see in my life [please forgive me Elvis] :) The problem of authentication Elvis's is the really bad his writing. We know that letter to Nixon is an authentic letter (nice sample). Elvis had many ways to write the same "P", "G", or any other letter. Because of this reason we have so many Elvis's fakes, strange signatures and ect. And many people really don't know the real Elvis's handwriting (and I guess I'm too). But we just trying to figure out something.
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