Ongoing History Daily: Fake autographs

If you’re at all into music memorabilia, you’ve probably dabbled in the world of autographs—or at least thought about it.  There are two ways to collect autographs:  (1) get the star to sign something in front of your face; or (2) buy an autograph from a dealer, another collector or eBay.  But here’s the problem with that.

There are a tremendous number of forgeries out there.  It’s very important that any autograph you purchase come with some kind of authentication or provenance.  This is especially important when it comes to Beatles autographs. 

Most fans have no idea that road manager Neil Aspinall signed perhaps thousands of items on behalf of the four Beatles.  His fake signatures are very, very convincing, too.  Even many pros have been fooled by his forgeries and have spent thousands on something that’s essentially worthless. 

So if you’re thinking of getting into this kind of collecting, be very, very careful.