Okay, I've never paid close attention to signatures. Can someone point me to a good clear example of the real deal so I can see what's so obvious about this?
I've seen signed stuff on various sites but now that I want to see them I can't find any decent scans.
Thanks barry :) I see now that the auction sigs lack distinguishing character as if they might be done by the same person. Is that it? :)
I must say, Freddie's always looks quite nice. I love his F.
This seller sell a lot of FAKES signed singles, these signatures are a very poor falsifications and i think he has sold on ebay around ten singles like this, it's a shame.
I've taken a good look at Martin's website and whilst I agree that there are several 'fakes' in the fakes section the jury must still be out on others - I am not convinced! I maintain that the only way to sort out those in which there are issues/question marks is to get a professional grapholigist involved in the debate. The bottom line is that the signatures (as they do) changed over the years - take a look at your own signature from 10-15 years ago (it will be fairly different: check Freddie's on the genuine page on the 1974 fan club mag as compared to the complete works picture. Also, it is actually very difficult to sign something yourself in 3 different ways - something a grapholigist would identify in seconds. I always base my personal assemsments on signatures from prints of the official signatures and from there you can take a good pot at those. I received signed items from the fan club around 1987/88 and I am totally convinced that they are official - nice crisp, clean and totally consistent with official printed versions. The fact that I had to wait over a year to receive these adds a bit of weight. The bottom line is that it is not easy to fake signatures, these are things that are totally individualistic and complex - those on Ebay are a bloody joke.
I pretty much agree with you that a professional graphologist is the only one who could help in these matters. I will try to find somebody who could help.
Whatever the final verdict is, I insist that the fanclub COA has the same "value" as any other COA, which means zero. There are heaps of poor fakes, heaps of perfect genuine signatures but there's always a 5% amount where only a professional can find the truth.