Open letter to STAT and Christopher Morales

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>They need glasses</b><p>Responding to DD's email (and others) above - <br /><br />Charles Hamilton was one of the grand-pappies of autograph auctions and authentication. I had the pleasure of knowing him, and reading all of his many autograph books cover to cover. One thing he made clear - he would often be offered autographs of the rarest individuals, or letters with the greatest content, "gussied up" (as he put it) in fancy frames with ornate certificates, great provenance ("I found it in grandma's papers in her attic in Waukegan..."), and sworn to over a stack of Bibles. He told me to forget all the gingerbread and window dressing, to always assume the seller was a liar, and look at the autograph itself. If it was fake, it was fake, and no amount of pretense should sway your opinion. <br /><br />Other suckers would bite...Hamilton would look at it, declare it a dog, and send the seller packing.<br /><br />Moral: Any idiot with a good framer, a fancily-wallpapered store or glossy catalog, and and a couple of ornate "o-fish-ee-yal" certificates of authenticity can open shop and declare himself an autograph dealer. Anyone. And only a sucker will buy a silk purse made out of a sow's ear...<br /><br />And what a cakewalk its been for the bad guys. The forgers slowly perfect their craft and sell their stuff to middlemen. The middlemen have their material, perhaps unwittingly (!), authenticated by whomever, and are issued certificates that state that the authentication is really just their professional "opinion". This opinion is then used by dealers and auction houses to sell these goods, which THEY DO NOT GUARANTEE, because the auction house is admittedly not qualified, and anyway, no one is allowed to doubt the qualifications of the "authenticator" who has already offered his professional "opinion" on the piece you just bought! Then, when you go to resell your bargain prize at Christie's and they tell you it's fake, you're stuck - no returns allowed because your piece was already "authenticated". So tough luck. Own that silk purse with pride! Hang it in the garage.<br /><br />I like what I see on this thread. I like the fact that the few people that have fought this fight over the years really haven't been alone. Could we get together a group of collectors and/or dealers and devote the time and resources to further pursue cleaning-up this ever-deepening cesspool? <br /><br />