The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I cannot believe that this poor imitation of an Edison signature was certified by a professional authenticator and is sold through a reputable auction house: http://www.rrauction.com/bidtracker_detail.cfm?IN=148

The link to the auction won't open for me, but that looks suspicious to me too. There's something very deliberate and forced-looking about it. It doesn't look like the loose hand of a man writing a quick note. It does look like the work of someone who studied the way Edison formed letters, and imitated them. Also, the kind of random capitalization shown in the auction note isn't common in the samples of Edison's writing in this search:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=tho ... ORM=HDRSC2

(Before the whole world was digitized, I made my living in Boston for a couple of decades designing custom type styles and calligraphy.)

In my humble but experienced opinion, that is as fake as fake can be......... I've seen worse, but that still is a blatant forgery.

I have gotten a few treasures through that auction house over the years. But one time I bought a document which I only learned after receiving it had been stolen from the archives of the city of New York (long story). I called it to their attention, returned it, and they refunded my payment (but not my shipping in either direction!). I was assured that it was going to be returned to the archive, whom I had contacted and copied in all my correspondence. A year or two later the same document appeared in the same company's catalog again. I contacted the head of the company and it was taken down, but to this day I still don't know if it was ever returned.

I have not purchased from them since.

This is obviously the signature of Earl Edison, Thomas Alva's second cousin.*





*source: totally made it up.

I find graphology fascinating . In those terms, this doesn't demonstrate the usual fluency of most of the examples of Edison's signature , but to play devil's advocate, he had several styles of handwriting....and they do vary a lot. This sounds like something he would write " ...Lucre sharps..." but I wonder if he would say " Manhattan" . I would think " New York " or " Wall Street".

JRT ( who has several styles of handwriting, but no phonograph patents.)

To be fair the auction description does not say its meant to be Thomas Edison , inventor of the phonograph.
It just says its certified to be the signature of someone call Edison who once went to a Laboratory.
A fool and his money....

Steve

[quote="Mr Grumpy"]This is obviously the signature of Earl Edison, Thomas Alva's second cousin.*

ah yes earl edison the man edison hired only as a look alike the man who would do stand ins at fotographic sessions for the press while the real master pressed on in his lab
earl knew nothing infact the documentary maker mr m python has said of earl that he had no censory apparatus at all!
i think it shows in the pictures, he had no idea! he went for a walk in 1926 he's never been seen since his last words where '' hey you guys i'm going for a pack of smokes'' some sources say he was last seen in havana but thats just a rumour

tino

He is definitely not seeing the "light" and it's not registering in his face... in fact he looks puzzled by the light bulb.

Edison had two very distinct styles of writing -- formal and informal. His formal writing is unbelievably precise and neat. His informal writing, as seen in the many lab notes that are floating around the collecting world, are almost scrawls.

The auctioned piece looks like someone meshed the two styles. It is made to appear like a memo or lab note, especially the lone "Edison" with no first name -- quite typical of his memos. (Many were simply signed "E".) But the flourishes and shape of the letters is much more inspired by his formal writing than his memo style.

Whoever did it had some understanding of Edison's style but as someone else noted, this looks too forced and not fluid. It is not so much written as carefully drawn. This shows effort, not casual ease.