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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 Cyrkin, Admin on April 20, 2011 at 8:46am

DB, you notified Hollywoodmemorabilia.com?

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Permalink Reply by Rich on April 20, 2011 at 8:54am

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I can't imagine they'd really care or do much about it. They seem to be more of a sloppy search engine than an actual autograph dealer.

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Permalink Reply by Kyle M. on April 20, 2011 at 6:08pm

Richard, I agree with you buddy.

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Permalink Reply by DB on April 20, 2011 at 2:03pm

not directly at the email provided but thru their service operation (twice)... and one can see how effective that approach seems to be.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Mysinger on April 20, 2011 at 12:10pm

What kind of crazy tripe are spouting man???....Are you still holding your breath that these dealers put more weight on a study like this over a highly valued COA? Are you feeling OK?

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Permalink Reply by DB on April 14, 2011 at 6:31pm

and is there any wonder why we are where we are with this. Recent Dialogue;

Gessin: I am forwarding the information you provided me and I will have someone look into this immediately

Gessin: I understand and we are going to look into this

don barcardi: with regards to Hestons... can you provide the who as I would like to follow-up directly?

Gessin: Yes one second

don barcardi: waiting?

don barcardi: still waiting?

Gessin: Please email info@hollywoodmemorabilia.com for any inquires on are findings on this matter

don barcardi: that is a generic email - who specifically should it be addressed to or do you know?

Gessin: Your email should be addressed to info@hollywoodmemorabilia.com

Gessin: Attention: Micheal

Gessin: Sorry Attn: Michael

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on April 15, 2011 at 5:49am

In my case, I had Heston first (TTM), and then I had Linda Harrison sign it as a show. I suppose it happens the other way around as well.

I guess I could wash the fake Heston off and still have a Harrison signed pic.

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Permalink Reply by Rich on May 2, 2011 at 2:48pm

Looks like AW posted my refund over the weekend :)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on May 4, 2011 at 5:32pm

Hi all:

I've updated my study with some additional in-person photos courtesy of Mike Sibley. A big thanks to Mike for helping me round it out and make it even stronger.

For your reference, here is the updated study.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Sibley on May 5, 2011 at 7:40am

Steve,

This had been an excellent study and my pleasure to contribute to it. I agree there will always be doubters, but even they must struggle to maintain this doubt with all the evidence now out there.

For collectors it is a sad outcome finding out your long since cherished Charlton Heston signatures were done by his own hand. However, as I was fortunate to find out, Mr. Heston was a generous signer in person and there are plenty of genuine examples out there for collectors to find, and if you look hard enough, they can be found at reasonable prices. Here is one I purchased back in March and was amazed to pick it up for just less than £20.00 (about $33.00) inclusive of postage costs!!

Many thanks Steve - Mike.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on May 5, 2011 at 7:51am

My pleasure, Mike. The sad reality is that it will take a very long time for all the secretarials to flush from the system. Until they do, it will dilute the cost of real exemplars.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on May 5, 2011 at 10:13am

I lead the below seller to this Charles Heston study and he still insists it isn't a secretarial. Like they say "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." All we can do is try to educate.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220778631561...