Beatles Autographs
captnbeefheart
Posts: 8 ✭
I purchased these items from a woman who claimed her late husband worked for United Artist. They came with some crude form of COA which you can see in the images, I have found zero information about "Stars Sign Here". If anyone can help me at least confirm that these look legit I would like to take the next steps towards getting them professionally authenticated.
I have more but didn't want to be too much of a bother. Thanks for any and all help.
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Here are a few more.
With Beatles stuff I assume they are fake unless proven otherwise.
I strongly suspect these are all fake.
The story is a little dubious. The COA does not inspire confidence. And I don't see any connection to United Artists.
I would sign up here and ask them. There are a lot of Beatles experts there:
https://live.autographmagazine.com/
Thank you JBK for your very fast response reply!
Per your recommendation I just joined up as a member to the link you provided. I am currently reading through some of the posts there and wow these people really know their stuff!!! I think they will be able to provide some very helpful information on whether to pursue a real COA or not. I'd rather not waste the time and money if someone experienced can easily tell if they are indeed fakes. I have a bad feeling I got ripped off and they are indeed fakes.
I'll report back with what I find out. Thanks again!
Just one warning...there are some real "personalities" over there, so don't get offended if you run into some of them. But there is a lot of knowledge, especially with the Beatles.
Thank you for the warning. My account got accepted so I can finally post now.
I did spend some time reading a few pages of posts where others are asking the same questions, you are correct, most are not authentic. I took the time to compare signatures that were deemed legit to the ones I have and it's so hard to tell, but my gut is saying I got taken and they are fakes.
One thing that is confusing is people are calling some signatures official "Neil" signatures. I have no idea what that means, I assume it's someone that is allowed to officially sign on behalf of the beatles.
Another thing I learned was it was common for one member of the beatles to sign for another and it's still considered "authentic". So although the signature might not match an authentic one by their own hand, if it's signed by another beatle it's considered okay. The bottom line is this is way over my head and I do need a professional that knows all of these things to make the judgement for me.
Thanks again, I'll report back with what they say.
From reading any of those Beatles posts I gathered that "Neil" is their manager Neil Aspinall. If fans handed stuff through the back door at a concert, for example, he often/usually signed their names himself. Such signatures might have modest value as an historical curiosity but no where near what authentic signatures are worth.
As for some of the Beatles signing for the others, I guess it did happen and the value is not the same as if all are authentic signatures but certainly still worth some money as some of the signatures will be real.
Good luck! I'd just post it all and sit back and watch the results.
That makes perfect sense. I just posted a bunch of photos over there and now it's just a waiting game to see what they say. Fingers crossed. I'll let you know how I make out.
Thanks again.
Beatles "stuff" still has a huge market. However, when it comes to the signatures extreme caution is the only route to take. (Back in 1965 and 1966 my sister and mother saw the Beatles perform live in Chicago. No signatures, however.)
I do have Ringo Starr on a small photo. He was the last Beatle to sign through the mail. But even he gave that up about 15 years ago.
The overwhelming consensus is they are all fakes over at the other forum.
Last night I took the time to download any certified and authenticated signature image I could find and uploaded them into an image editing program. The program allowed me to resize each signature and overlay them. What we found was among all the legitimate signatures found they were all extremely inconsistent and to be honest almost all were different from each other in one way or another. I then overlaid the closest legit signature matching my signatures and they were fairly close, much closer than other "legitimate" and certified signatures. I came to the conclusions after doing this exercise was how the heck can anyone tell if it's a legitimate signature without actually being present for it? Due to the lack of consistency and sheer amount of differences between legit signatures I don't know how anyone can unequivocally say one way or the other if they are legit just by looking at it.
Authenticating autographs is partially an art, not a science.
Signatures change slightly from one situation to another. But, the relationship between letters, shapes, etc. maintains a degree of consistency.
Also, a forger may closely copy an authentic autograph, but it may appear "drawn", or slowly written.
If you don't have faith in the opinions or experience of experts then having them professionally authenticated won't make sense as you won't have confidence either way.
Might be best to just hang them back up on the wall and enjoy them. But, without professional authentication, there is no need or benefit to insuring them for thousands of dollars, unless your insurance company would be willing to pay out a claim on unauthenticated or questionable autographs.
Lastly, an autograph needs to not only be authentic, but authenticatable. There are many legitimate signatures that are so out of the ordinary that they can't be authenticated.
I am not an expert on Beatles signatures but here are a few random thoughts after further review of them.
That COA is a joke. "All sales final" and no address, person's name, etc. No recourse possible so it isn't really guaranteeing anything.
The Lennon card: the signature does not have any fluidity to it. The J looks relatively slowly written and the end of the signature comes to a complete stop and has a defined end point where the pen sat on the paper momentarily. These are not consistent with his style and suggest forgery.
George Harrison photo: it almost looks like the signer stopped and restarted between the r and g in the first name. Also, the first name and all three components of the H have the same hard stops mentioned above - probably very uncharacteristic.
Paul McCartney photo: same issues with hard stops, and the l in Paul ends awkwardly.
The Ringos are a mess.
Just my observations...
Thank you so much!!!!
Your explanation of the details, starting stopping points, hard stops, fluidity, etc... was exactly what I was looking for. Nobody on the other forum would give me any sort of insight into why they say they are fake, they just said it takes years of experience and they can't explain it. I don't need an exact breakdown or a complete education on the matter, just wanted some "red flags" of forgery pointed out to me. I'm also very curious person in nature and beyond finding out the end result I am always interested in the process on how the conclusion was made.
Thanks again, your last post was extremely insightful and appreciate the time you took to explain these things to me with the examples.
That's one of the things I had in mind when I mentioned the personalities there.
Lots of legitimate experts, but not a lot of teachers. They even alienate each other at times. I think some are intentionally vague because they feel they need to protect some kind of trade secrets.
You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned their "personalities"!
I figured they didn't want to divulge trade secrets, being an electrical engineer I see other engineers not sharing their circuits. I design audio equipment and there are many that just feel their circuits are their own intellectual property which I can respect. I divulge my circuits to the diy community and I feel it doesn't take any food out of my mouth at the end of the day, in fact I find quite the opposite.
I also thought they won't tell me trade secrets because they may get actual forgers using their site as a testing ground for their own forgeries and using feedback from professionals to help them make better forgeries.
A few have mentioned this very point in the past.
I have mixed feelings about it. I do understand their concerns, but not sharing the information makes it hard for others to learn.
On top of that, a few over there also authenticate autographs for a living, so they don't always give
out free or full assessments.
Right now there is a raging debate over there about a signed CD that is going on sale this week. It has descended into them attacking each other.