[Snowman]

Originally Posted by rats60

Joe couldn't write in Chinese or Greek or Russian or Arabic. Teaching someone how to write is different than teaching you to write in a different alphabet. I think you are not giving enough consideration to Joe's lack of education. In particular the JAC of Jackson is too well formed to be in the hand of someone who couldn't write and it isn't similar to other early signatures.

When you zoom in, you can still see those letters are clearly labored. Was it because the hand writing it was attempting to forge his signature which was known to be labored, or was it because Joe signed it himself? We can't know with certainty, but I think it's reasonable to begin looking at all of the circumstantial evidence (the full portfolio and all of the other signatures and inscriptions that came with it) to increase or decrease the likelihood of its authenticity. In the video someone linked to earlier where Gold explains his process, this is what he did and it appears as though the braoder portfolio combined with the labored handwriting is what convinced him.

I also think the argument above about him having more room to sign on a large photo, as opposed to having to fit his signature into a tiny space on a driver's license, could account for a few letters being slightly cleaner than they are in other known examples of his signature where the spacing was limited.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

At this point, the bottom line for me is, if you're going to authenticate a Joe Jackson autograph which you know is going to be worth an awful lot of money, you better be damn sure. I don't see how Steve Grad could have been damn sure. At best he could have thought it more likely than not authentic, and that doesn't seem good enough to put that permanent blessing on it.

I think this is the most reasonable position to take. I'm glad to see we don't always disagree

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

I doubt as much time or thought went into his decision and consideration as was done here and on BO. It was another feather in the cap moment. It does seem to have definitely been a reach.

You should check out the video linked to earlier in this thread. Gold walks the viewer through his thought process, albeit briefly.

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

Snowman's whole purpose of being here is to play the contrarian. There is nothing he would not defend at this point. A guy who has 11 different post grade degrees would know EVERYTHING about someone who never went to school.

I apologize if my point about most people here being capable of learning how to write their names in Kanji in 5 minutes, despite being illiterate in Japanese, didn't land with you. Perhaps I should have said "some" people here could do this rather than "most". I hope I didn't offend you. I will be better next time.