REA Gary Cooper

[prewarsports]

I have an autograph of Willie Heston on ebay (and another in my personal collection). I was contacted by his grand daughter who told me it was fake because Willie REFUSED to sign anything "Willie" because she told me he HATED that name because he was teased about it since it can be another name for a Penis (true story). I respectfully told he in a nice way that I knew more about her Grand Fathers autographs than she did having collected early Football autographs and owning or handling at least 20 Hestons in the last 10 years and she was like 8-10 years old when he died. She refused to believe me and said she was going to contact authorities and all that. SO, I dug into my files and asked some friends for help and provided 5 different examples of handwritten letters completely in his hand in which he signed his name "Willie". Having completely proven her wrong, she just disappeared, never even bothered to apologize for questioning my ethics.

Moral of the story (and I have at least 5 -10 other similar stories over the years) FAMILY USUALLY DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT, especially when you are talking about children or grand-children. I would absolutely trust a spouse's word on something (my wife knows me better than I know myself) but be careful taking the word of "family" as gospel in the collecting world.

Rhys

[Leon]

Originally Posted by prewarsports

I have an autograph of Willie Heston on ebay (and another in my personal collection). I was contacted by his grand daughter who told me it was fake because Willie REFUSED to sign anything "Willie" because she told me he HATED that name because he was teased about it since it can be another name for a Penis (true story). I respectfully told he in a nice way that I knew more about her Grand Fathers autographs than she did having collected early Football autographs and owning or handling at least 20 Hestons in the last 10 years and she was like 8-10 years old when he died. She refused to believe me and said she was going to contact authorities and all that. SO, I dug into my files and asked some friends for help and provided 5 different examples of handwritten letters completely in his hand in which he signed his name "Willie". Having completely proven her wrong, she just disappeared, never even bothered to apologize for questioning my ethics.

Moral of the story (and I have at least 5 -10 other similar stories over the years) FAMILY USUALLY DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT, especially when you are talking about children or grand-children. I would absolutely trust a spouse's word on something (my wife knows me better than I know myself) but be careful taking the word of "family" as gospel in the collecting world.

Rhys

Nice message Rhys..

[shelly]

Originally Posted by Leon

Nice message Rhys..

I will stay with the Coopers daughter's story. I will also stay with Rons opinion that the signiture is bad. Daughter top authenticator win win.


Leon stick with the card side.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by shelly

I will stay with the Coopers daughter's story. I will also stay with Rons opinion that the signiture is bad. Daughter top authenticator win win.


Leon stick with the card side.

I am going with Rhys's personal and definitive experience on this one. To each their own. And yes, if it were a card I could tell you if it is fake or not. Not so with autographs unless you got it in person or saw it in person.

[shelly]

Originally Posted by Leon

I am going with Rhys's personal and definitive experience on this one. To each their own. And yes, if it were a card I could tell you if it is fake or not. Not so with autographs unless you got it in person or saw it in person.

Just having fun. Your to serious.

[shelly]

Oh Leon, by the way would you do this in your auction.The bidder is off the hook but this what took place unless the high bidder renegs.

The current high-bidder on the item at $8,000, however, reached out to Haulsofshame.com after recently learning about an article published on this site in 2010. Said collector, Ralph Gary Brauner, “After bidding $8,000 on the above item in the ongoing REA 2013 auction, I found an article saying it is a fraud. It has 3 COA’s. They will not remove my bid. Can you help me?”

One of the coa's came from Gutierrrez while with Mastro, second coa Psa 2007 and finally back to Mastro in 2010 authenticated by Spence seems Mastro had a big interest in this piece.

[Runscott]

This is crazy.

Note to auction houses: DO NOT check provenance on items like this. What if the family told you it is a forgery? Then you would be forced to state in your description that the family says it's impossible that Ruth could have signed this, but sometimes family members have bad memories, so they could be wrong.

Holy cow.

[Runscott]

Actually, we already know this piece is good and that the family members are either lying or have bad memories - the TPA's SAID it is good.

Good thing PSA isn't authenticating the family's line of descent. All they have to do is issue a certificate stating that the children actually have different parents, and that's that. Now I get the 'DNA' part. ...or is it 'Do Not Argue' ?