Autograph authenticity help

[ianeh]

Hi. Below are photos that were said to have been signed by the Beach Boys a number of years ago. I have also include a COA from MSPS relagraphs. Trying to research MSPS they seemed to sell a lot on ebay a few years back. Now nothing. This potential purchase is not for reselling just something I wanted. Any advice or observations you may have are appreciated. I apologize for the photo quality but this is all I could get. Thank you!

Picture 1 is the album

Picture 2 is Al Jardine

Picture 3 is Dennis Wilson

Picture 4 is Carl Wilson

Picture 5 Brian Wilson

Picture 6 is possible Mike Love

Picture 7 is the COA

[37!ws]

Brian's looks suspect...the "Brian" part is too neat...and one give-away -- Brian dots his "I"s with circles.

[FatherOfTheMan Sr101]

I have a poster I had handsigned by Brian, on a table, and the "Brian" part is very messy, the "R" is really large and... ugly hahaha

As for the "O" mine has no dot, he actually just curved around after the sig and went through the "O"

[southbay]

Dennis I can't help you with.  Brian looks suspect only because of the neatness.  I have  few Brian signatures that I ghave gotten in person, none of them have an "o" over his "i". If he was relaxed and in a non rushed enviornment, who knows? Al and Mike definitely look authentic. Carl looks authentic as well, but his signature usually tends not to be that "neat", his "C" usually has a bigger sweep to it; he is a lefty so his signature a  lefty slant to it which this appears to have.

[Jon Stebbins]

Dennis looks suspicious to me. Very few of his signatures are that "perfect"...they are usually kind of messy.

[guitarfool2002]

As another poster said a few weeks ago about autograph authenticity, anyone can print out a certificate and call the item "authenticated" if you take a cynical view of it, and you almost have to assume the worst with so many fakes and forgeries being sold as authentic by "reputable" brokers and dealers. The only authentication you can really trust in a dishonest world is having seen the person(s) sign it in front of you, having photo or video/film evidence of the signer with the item, or having some kind of witness confirmation from someone like a relative or family member who could say exactly what the item is or was.

Anything else is a leap of faith.

After dealing just a tiny bit with autographed cards in the baseball collecting world years ago, if the item is one of investment quality that has a high asking price, maybe having an autograph expert along the lines of that guy they call in on the show "Pawn Stars" to authenticate the item before agreeing to buy it would be a good idea. If you notice on that show and others like it, the people buying it never buy an autographed item before having it checked and confirmed, and they never buy on the word of the person selling it or the word of a certificate that came with the sale. That seems to be a good example to follow.

[Justin]

Not sure how many years ago this actually was because there can be slight changes to a person's signature over the years... but I'm going to say that none of those signatures are the real deal.   Brian's signature lacks  few key characteristics:  the fat/bubbly "B" and the wide/pregnant "W' that usually looks like waves....very round and wide.  The whole signature is too smooth and concise for my liking.  The Mike signature is conveniently hard to decipher because of the faded marker and the ink mixing in with the colors on the LP. But even though, it's a little too thin from all the sigs I"ve seen.   Alan's signature is pretty straightforward and probably the easiest to forge...and this one doesn't tell me that it's really from Al but it COULD be.  To be honest, it just looks like all the signatures were done by the same hand. We could also be dealing with an item that contains 1 or 2 real signatures and the owner added the other band members himself to "complete" the autographs.  I would vote for Al being the possible real one but nothing is really selling me that it is.  Even if that signature is real, the entire item is ruined by the forged Brian and Mike sigs.  I'm unfamiliar with Carl and Dennis but from the samples online, Carl's doesn't look like a match. Just my two cents.

[LeeDempsey]

I would be very suspicious of Brian's, Carl's, and Dennis' -- Brian's for the reasons already stated; Carl's and Dennis', because they are more like their 1960's signatures.  By the late '70s Carl's signature was essentially C_____ W_____, with little definition to the "arl" and "ilson," and Dennis' signature was not that neat.

Several years ago on eBay there were a TON of LPs with signatures identical to these types, and "COA's."  The kicker was that there were a couple with Dennis' signature on reissue covers that, um, weren't released until after Dennis death...

Lee

[LeeDempsey]

Plus folks in a group tend to sign near their own photo.  Why would Al sign right between Mike and Brian?!?

[runnersdialzero]

Plus folks in a group tend to sign near their own photo.  Why would Al sign right between Mike and Brian?!?

To be fair, I cannot tell who is who on the Endless Summer cover sans Brian (I think). Maybe they couldn't, either.

[JohnMill]

Plus folks in a group tend to sign near their own photo.  Why would Al sign right between Mike and Brian?!?

As an autograph collector, I've found this not to be true at all especially if the person obtaining the signatures catches the person in a casual setting as oppose to an organized signing.  I've had people sign for me over the years on top of other people on group photos, off to the side and every other which way.  In fact having a group sign/autograph where each member of the group signs by his/her photo increases the value of the photograph where as a group sign where all the principals sign all over the photograph and every which way decreases it's value.

[stack-o-tracks]

I wouldn't trust something that was authenticated years after two of the people who allegedly signed it are died. How would they know it's legit?

[JohnMill]

I wouldn't trust something that was authenticated years after two of the people who allegedly signed it are died. How would they know it's legit?

PSA/DNA authenticates tons of signed memorabilia signed by people who are now deceased and are generally held as the industry standard in authentication.  With all due respect by your standards nobody should pursue baseballs that have recently been authenticated as being signed by the likes of Mickey Mantle or Ted Williams because both of those players have passed on.  That would be in a word: ridiculous.

[stack-o-tracks]

Why's that ridiculous? I wouldn't waste my money on something that's "authenticated" by somebody who wasn't  present when the item was being signed and doesn't have some way to prove that the person actually signed it. It would be super easy for somebody to sit there and practice their Dennis Wilson autograph over and over again until it looks close enough to put on an album cover for some guy to say "yeah, looks legit."

[JohnMill]

Why's that ridiculous?

It just is.  I mean it's your business what you do with your money but I'd think you'd find that most of the collecting world disagrees with you.  As long as you have an organization like PSA/DNA who provide authentication services for Fortune 500 companies authenticating your items even if the signature they are authenticating is of a person that is deceased you are pretty safe.  

[Andrew G. Doe]

The DW and CW sigs are almost identical handwriting... Brian's is far too legible, even for 1974 and the W on all the Wilson's is way too similar... Alan's might be close... and Mike's (I'm assuming it's his) looks nothing like. My two cents is, they're all fakes. Hope you didn't pay too much.

[JohnMill]

Also as a cautionary note: I would advise anyone purchasing a Beach Boys autograph (especially one featuring deceased members) to get third party authentication especially given the fact that we are in the midst of this big anniversary tour.  Stuff like this tends to bring the forgers out of the woodwork looking to make a quick buck off of enthusiastic/nostalgic fans so be wary of items that just have a "mom & pop" COA (like the items displayed in this post had).

[ianeh]

The DW and CW sigs are almost identical handwriting... Brian's is far too legible, even for 1974 and the W on all the Wilson's is way too similar... Alan's might be close... and Mike's (I'm assuming it's his) looks nothing like. My two cents is, they're all fakes. Hope you didn't pay too much.

Didn't buy. Wanted some opinion before I did so. Thanks to very one who replied.

[ReggieDunbarJr]

My guess is that it was signed by Al and Mike at a gig in the nineties... and that someone put the others on later.
A forger wouldn't mess up Mikes like that. "The king doesn't have to pretend that he's the king."

For reference:




//RDjr

[LeeDempsey]

Plus folks in a group tend to sign near their own photo.  Why would Al sign right between Mike and Brian?!?

As an autograph collector, I've found this not to be true at all especially if the person obtaining the signatures catches the person in a casual setting as oppose to an organized signing.  I've had people sign for me over the years on top of other people on group photos, off to the side and every other which way.  In fact having a group sign/autograph where each member of the group signs by his/her photo increases the value of the photograph where as a group sign where all the principals sign all over the photograph and every which way decreases it's value.

Perhaps it was wrong of me to generalize about all groups, but I've been collecting the Beach Boys since the '70s, and I've obtained numerous autographed items, both in-person and through third parties.  I've never seen the guys sign an item next to the wrong photo, regardless of whether it was an organized autograph session or a quick signature while walking to the tour bus.  In fact one time back around 1982, after a concert I handed Al a "Summer Days" cover to sign.  He searched the front cover for about 10 seconds looking for his photo, before realizing that he wasn't on the cover!  (He ended up flipping it over and signing on the back next to his photo).

If anyone has examples in their collection where the Beach Boys have signed next to the wrong headshot, I'd be curious to see them.

Lee

[bgas]

Plus folks in a group tend to sign near their own photo.  Why would Al sign right between Mike and Brian?!?

As an autograph collector, I've found this not to be true at all especially if the person obtaining the signatures catches the person in a casual setting as oppose to an organized signing.  I've had people sign for me over the years on top of other people on group photos, off to the side and every other which way.  In fact having a group sign/autograph where each member of the group signs by his/her photo increases the value of the photograph where as a group sign where all the principals sign all over the photograph and every which way decreases it's value.

Perhaps it was wrong of me to generalize about all groups, but I've been collecting the Beach Boys since the '70s, and I've obtained numerous autographed items, both in-person and through third parties.  I've never seen the guys sign an item next to the wrong photo, regardless of whether it was an organized autograph session or a quick signature while walking to the tour bus.  In fact one time back around 1982, after a concert I handed Al a "Summer Days" cover to sign.  He searched the front cover for about 10 seconds looking for his photo, before realizing that he wasn't on the cover!  (He ended up flipping it over and signing on the back next to his photo).

If anyone has examples in their collection where the Beach Boys have signed next to the wrong headshot, I'd be curious to see them.

Lee

Don't want to disappoint you!  So here's one where Al couldn't find his picture, but signed anyway... 

   

[bgas]

This one, while a bit different and not as good an example, but, Bruce signs large as there's no place for him at all, and Dennis way off to the side form his head. 

   

[LeeDempsey]

I'm glad I didn't put up any money on this one Chris!      I guess the whole Al-David and Brian-Bruce thing could cause some autograph problems...

[37!ws]

Just a bit of additional thought that may or may not pertain to this exact case...

- I've heard of someone in the BB/BW camp who is allegedly an expert at forging Brian's signature.  I won't say who, as I've no evidence, just hearsay.

- Some years ago my boss got me a Christmas present via eBay, and the shipping was taking forever despite him paying for expediting shipping...I think it was well after New Year's that it actually arrived. What he had ordered: an autographed picture of BW. What arrived: a very pixellated scan of a pre-autographed Brian photo, complete with pixellated autograph. eBay was virtually no help to my boss, and the seller ignored every message. I forwarded the auction and stuff to Jean Sievers just to let her know that there's a forger out there; she wrote back and said that really the best way to get an autographed picture of Brian is really to go through the Lippin Group to guarantee it's authentic.

[Ziggy Stardust]

- I've heard of someone in the BB/BW camp who is an expert at forging Brian's signature.

Kinda creepy.