hey, how's it going today, I'm just gonna be basically, I've had
I've had a lot of questions about fake autographs and you know
especially when you're writing through the mail, so sending fan mail and requesting an autograph from a celebrity or athlete or whoever
and a lot of times you get an actual reply, they'll send you an autograph
Um maybe like do a handwritten letter or something like that, but a lot of the times also you get kind of these fake responses
and there's like whole bunch of them, like everything you can imagine
from an auto pen to a secretary siding to just basically a pre print
which is like a photo copy, I mean there's all kinds of stuff out there, so I wanted to go over this box right here
at my side which has all of the auto pens and all the kind of fake autographs that I've collected over the years that people
have sent me. Um So first I'm gonna start off with some that I wrote to you
Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was still governor of California and uh basically wrote him some fan mail
um I was working for the state at the time, um and I would actually like run legislation down to his office
so I got to see him like do some speeches outside of his office and like I got to go into his office and see
the portrait, but his Andy Warhol portraits of him and his wife Maria
um and I'm still like a big Arnold fan to this day, um even back then
definitely big fan, so I wrote him some letters and I got this kind of form response back
so probably his secretary, remember secretary at the time was named Maryland
I would talk to her at her desk, so they would send me these kind of boilerplate responses
I mean they would definitely like responded to what I had written, but you know
even though it's on Arnold Schwarzenegger's letterhead and it has like a facsimile photo here
so just like his photocopied signature, like not like the real thing
but he would also send along with that Like an eight x 10 photo as well
so you would get this in the mail at the time, and this is also just basically like
you know, printed out with a signature already on it. So while I have
I do have hand signed autographs because I did meet him in person and I got some stuff signed
This is an example of what is called a pre print, so it's basically just printed off with a signature on it already
so um that was a pretty cool one, and similarly, uh if you had written to his wife Maria Shriver
well at the time, wife, they are no longer married, but she would kind of send out the same kind of thing
Um So this is Maria right here and you can see that she's got basically this printed autograph at the bottom
Um so let's see now that I'm looking at it
but it might actually be, so this is actually an auto pen now that I'm actually looking at it closely
so you can you probably can't tell on the camera, but it's, the ink is a little bit raised
it's clear that this was laid down by like actually live ink
So what an auto pen is, it's basically like it's just a machine with an armature on it and you actually stick a real pen
in it with actual ink. So basically goes on a template. Um You can think of like kind of like a cricket
how they have an arm that moves around based on the design
Well, instead of just like a pattern or a picture that a cricket might do
An auto pen would do the design of somebody's signature. So it will use an actual pen onto a photo or whatever kind of material
that you send them and you know, it will send out right the signature on there and it looks pretty good um because it is
live ink and it doesn't look like it's just like a photocopy. Um but there's a couple of ways that you can tell what an
auto pen is that you have an auto pin basically, you know
when you write the lines of your signature will have varying thickness in the lines
because that's just you have different pressure at certain points. Auto pins don't really do that
So you're gonna see a uniform thickness and all the lines and um it's kind of at least to be a tell for some of
the older machines, but now, I mean auto pens have gotten a lot better
but they've been around for probably like 100 years at this point, they've been around for a long time
which means that the technology has had a long time to get perfected as well, but one of the telltale signs certainly used to be
less. So now that the ink would kind of pool at the end of the letter
so you would get these like dots at the beginning and end of letters where the pen just wouldn't lift up
Um So that's kind of some ways you can tell, but the best best way to tell if you have an auto pen is just
like comparing with other people. So a lot of times people send fan mail to a certain celebrity
there's gonna be a lot of fans out there, a lot of people like for example the rock
like a lot of people are writing fan mail to the rock and they're getting responses from him
If you look at all the responses, they all look identical because they're all done by an auto pen machine
not the Rock himself. So if you just compare and you see that they are exact perfect matches
then yeah, it's probably gonna be not a machine. So there's that
Alright, so I got a question about from Susanna about Tom Felton if he signs through the mail
Uh Actually I just got him through the mail. Um Because he I think he I don't know if he still is or he certainly
was like last month on broadway on the West End. So that's U
K'S version of broadway. He was doing
33 10 to 12 a Ghost Story, something like that. I forget exactly the the title of the play but he was doing a play
on the West End and I wrote him a letter there I think actually to the stage manager and asked the stage manager to get
me a playbill. Uh And they didn't come through the playbill but they gave me a signed piece of paper by Tom and the rest
of the cast there. So um yeah you can definitely get Tom Felton but Probably the easiest way to get him
And he actually has an autobiography coming up and if you go to premier collectibles you can pre order the autobiography and it's they have
signed copies there. Um so that's like definitely the easiest way is probably like I don't know $30 for Tom Felton who plays Draco Malfoy
and Harry Potter if you're interested in him
All right. Um blazes asked if if I have any Ozzy Osbourne autographs
I do not. I mean I've certainly seen his so he's like one of the people who sell autographs with their when they release
a new album, right? So, um unfortunately, I think the last album
I think those are good, but the one before that at least those were all like Auto pen
So um you know, sometimes certain artists, they can be a little bit hit or miss
unfortunately, so you can get someone who, for one album, they'll on their official store
they'll sell some cds that have, you know, signed art cards or the album themselves assigned
but when you get in the mail, you find out it's an auto pen or whatever and the next album that gets released
they actually take the time to sign themselves. So, I mean, even with like, from artist to artist
you can like just work them off altogether. Um You know, there's some artists who always come through with authentic stuff and there's some artists
who are a little bit more shady, so I would say Ozzy is more on that shady side where you don't know if you're going
to get something that's authentic or not. Um And plus man, I mean
I think he's definitely a music legend. Um but I mean he's not someone that I really listened to in general
so I tend not to collect people who don't have some kind of personal interest in myself
but um
yeah, let's see, okay, Suzanne, I think back to Tom Felton sent him a photo a month ago
so hopefully it will come back soon. Yeah, so I hope you get it. Um Yeah if not I would already pre ordered the book
from him on premier collectibles. Um I've never had any problem with the site and they've always been pretty upstanding
The only like qualm I have about them is that usually the autographs come on a premier collectibles
like book plate um which is all like already pre attached to the book
so if you wanted to like frame it you would have to cut it out of the book, which is a little bit of a
bummer. But I mean the autographs are always like genuine and good
So um yeah I would go there for my Tom Felton autograph needs um
and he does conventions too, so I mean it's possible you might get him at a convention or something
Um Alright, Here's one from Even McGregor actually had the opportunity to meet him in person when he was in san Antonio just like two
months ago, but this was through the mail and these ones are secretarial. Um
Yeah secretarial. So I'm looking at it right now
you know actually I'm gonna say you kinda have to look at it how it looks in the light to see how the pen is
and yeah this is not living, so this is actually a pre print my bad
so this is basically just printed off and um not hand signed by you and so it's a pre print
um
Zoe Deschanel um this is from uh this is from spanky taylor or no studio fan mail
this is where it's from. So there's this agency called studio fan mail. They handle fan mail for a lot of different celebrities and basically
none of the stuff they send out is legit, it's all either a pre print or an auto pen
Um So basically the celebrity just pays them money to handle their fan mail and just whenever they get a letter I presume they probably
don't even read them. They just send out like this pre printed photo and that's it
So if you have find an address for studio fan mail somewhere and you want to write to the celebrity um if you want to
get this photo it's a nice looking photo, it's got a nice looking signature, it's just not genuine
So if you want to have like a free souvenir or like you know kind of piece of memorabilia maybe then it's cool but if
you're looking for an actual autograph, like something that in this case Zoey Deschanel actually touch for their hand and signed then um No but
if you can actually email them too. So if you want to email them
ask for an autograph, don't have to make it elaborate, you can get like something like this
But most collectors um don't even keep these kind of things like I have a whole box full of all my pre prints and the
fakes and all that kind of stuff. A lot of collectors were just thrown right into trash but I think it's good to keep for
reference and you know it's kind of cool to look back at them and see the kind of stuff that these celebrities send out
Here's one from kristen Stewart's this one. Let's see. This was definitely with live ink signed
It looks like silver sharpie but it's an auto open unfortunately
Alright, another example of an auto pen and even like this one
So it's not sometimes it's not just like the signature. This one says peace and love things so they can have all kinds of
different inscriptions on there, not just the signature itself. So like it looks like you know
somewhat elaborate and it's got a little message. So you might think oh hey
somebody actually signed this, right? But you know it's just just a machine that had this pre pre pre set template in there. So
um yeah, you gotta be careful and really look at what you're seeing and do a little bit of research when you're trying to figure
out if these signatures are real or not, johnny said just posted my Star Wars collection and back to the Future collection and the last
few nights. Oh cool. Yeah. I mean I started off autograph collecting with Star Wars like I don't know
probably back and at least about 2010 maybe earlier. And Star Wars was my main focus and it's still probably about
I'd say probably about half of my collection of Star Wars um And in particular
the original trilogy is like what I'm really into um that's what I grew up with um and that's what I think is kind of
the most uh most magical for me, so um yeah, Star Wars original trilogy in particular
a lot of autographs from that. Um So yeah, I'd definitely be interested in checking out what uh what you've got, johnny
dub says, do you think it would work to request through the mail using an address for a public on location set
Like a school? Um Yeah, well I mean it depends like especially if
you know, you really gotta have some good timing, like sometimes an on location set, they're only there for like a day
so you'd have to have really good timing in order to get that
Um But it can work like especially for like, you know, singers
if they're going to be at an arena singing um Yeah, it's perfectly cool to like send them a letter a week in advance And
you know, they've been through that kind of thing, they know what to do, they know who to give it off to
but something like a school where they maybe they've never had a film production there before
they might get your letter and kind of like scratch their heads as to what to do with it
so um you know, I mean it's worth a shot, you can send it
I mean the worst thing that can happen is you're out the 50 cents for a stamp, right
So I would say um you know, send it. But I mean the chances of something like a school where they're probably only gonna be
there for a day or two max is probably like not that great
your best doing, sending it to like production studio where they're gonna be kind of like
you know, going to be set up camp for a little bit longer than that
Um Let's see
tattoos included says I sent for a robert. Downey JR autograph about three months ago
How long could a reply possibly take? Um you know, actually three months is uh you know
it sounds like a long time for a reply, but it's really not. I mean I've
I mean certainly a lot of people will reply within three months, but I mean I've had responses take years to get to me
So I mean it's really kind of about patients like you basically got to send it out there and then just like forget about it
go on to the next request and hopefully that will come back. Um I'd say like even like give up any hope until like a
year out, like waiting a year for a response is not like unheard of and it's definitely Yeah
do you have a decent chance of getting a response back? I would say Still
robert Downey Jr I mean
He's tough like I mean just because he charges for autographs, like people who charge for autographs even when they charge like Robert Downey jr
was like, I don't know, $1,200 or something for his autograph. His last signing
Um this doesn't necessarily mean that he won't sign for free through the mail
It still happens all the time. So um
for that reason alone I wouldn't discount them but he just he doesn't have a really good track record with signing through the mail and
I believe he sends out pre prints. So I mean if you got something back
the odds of it being something that he actually signed himself would be not good
Yeah, unfortunately. But it's worth a try. I've written to him a number of times and I mean I'm still waiting on a response so
you know, you know, I haven't given up hope that Stranger Things have happened
All right. Johnny says all of his are original trilogy. Mostly Cool
Yeah. So I'm sure there's probably a lot of overlap in our collections
A lot of the same people we've got
uh has basically all the original actors just finished with alec Guinness and George Lucas
Yeah. George Lucas was like
I only got him just this year and I've been collecting forever
So um yeah he was definitely like one of the ones that and I really wanted him
I mean he's the creator of Star Wars, so I felt like I had just this huge hole in my collection not having him in
there. Um But I think one of the things that, you know
put me off was that his signature is just so easy to fake
So I had to like wait till I found somebody who I could trust like a reputable seller because he doesn't really see through the
mail. I've tried them through the mail all a bunch of times written to him and a bunch of different addresses and uh no luck
No luck with George Lucas through the mail. So I had to wait to buy it on the secondary market
and it took me a while to find somebody who had one available pre decent price that I trusted
And I finally found somebody this year actually, like did it was like a partial purchase partial trade
Um So yeah, that was cool. I'm glad I finally got George Lucas in my collection
Johnny says that by far my favorite one I got um my blaster signed by Harrison Ford
Cool. Yeah, so I mean props are pretty cool. Like I don't really have a whole lot of signed props and I'm still kind of
like if I were to get something like a blaster, I think I'd be pretty torn between actually getting the blaster itself signed or like
a plaque like, I don't know. Um
They do look cool though and I mean certainly, um, if you're spending like top dollar on someone like Harrison Ford who their base price
is $800 for like a trading card and it just goes up from there
Um, if you, if you get a trading card, um, you know
there's probably not a whole lot of meat on the bone for resale value after that
But if you get something like a blaster where you kind of put in like a little bit of a extra initial investment to get
like, I don't know how much that cost would probably like, you know, two or 300 bucks I would imagine of a really nice replica
Um
you know, you're gonna get like considerably more valuable item when you add the signature to that
So um, yeah, I think it's a good choice to get something like a blaster signed
Um, Yeah, helmets are cool. My buddy. Um, Nick West who has the website
Sir, Nick Justice. He does like custom helmets. He does like, he makes them at home and he hand paints them
does the weatherizing and all kinds of stuff to them. Um, so he's got a number of those signs
He's also an autograph collector. So we'll take them to conventions and get outside and stuff
but if you want a helmet, I would recommend looking him up
I think his prices are pretty good. It's all handmade by him
So plug for sonic justice. My buddy. Um, also another san Antone Ian
let's see. I guess we look at some more autographs even. I mean, I think
so. This is George Bush sr another auto pen. Like I think auto pens kind of got popularized through the use of presidents and political
figures. Um, that was really the kind of the original use case
Like just the fact that celebrities and people like that used it to respond to fan mail was kind of like a secondary add on
thing. It wasn't really the original intention of the auto pen machine
Um, let's see. Let's see. Maybe I can dig up some cool ones
So yeah, speaking of, speaking of Harrison Ford, maybe I can find his in here
So every once in a while I'd say like two times a year
Harrison Ford sends out like an actual genuine hand signed response to fans and you know
he probably gets, I mean, no doubt he gets thousands of autograph requests every year through the mail and his secretary just sends back
Um, it's basically like a form letter and some pre printed photos. Um
right, So
this is what the form letter and the photos look like
So this is the form letter. It basically says, you know, Harrison Ford gets a lot of requests
Doesn't have a whole lot of time. Um, you know, yada yada
here is some pictures as kind of consolation prize I guess. Um
so, I mean, as you can see, I mean I've I've got a number of these already um you know
So I mean I sent him a number of letters in Vain and I've gotten these kinds of responses but I was lucky enough to
get an actual response from him um but it took like 30 tries so uh and like I tried you know
probably half as many addresses just to get a response from him
Um and it finally happened when I wrote to him the venue, so he was doing
I forget what the film was but he was about to film something actually shot an email to the producer of that film and they
sent it to his secretary and
I got it done that way, so that was pretty cool
um
Yeah johnny says you met him, this is like so I met Arnold Schwarzenegger and that was like the bucket list item and like the
other celebrity really want to meet them and that's like another bucket list item is her son Ford. Um
Yeah, yeah I would love to meet Harrison Ford, I probably would do like one of those dinners where like he goes to speak and
he pay like chill out a bunch of cash just to be in attendance but
yeah I mean ultimately I'd love to do that, I wish I was still in California because that would be a much easier prospect since
he does most of his appearances there in California um I'm here in texas now
but um yeah, hopefully I can make it out to something like that and actually meet him
johnny, I'm curious how you met him, how did that come about
Um
johnny says top three people he met for autographs were ford gold bloom and Keaton
so only one of those that I've actually met is gold bloom
He was at a convention and I was like, you know, it's a quick encounter
like we were just doing like the autograph signing line and you know, they get you out of those things
in and out in like under a minute, so I mean
I had very little time to talk to him, but I was there with my wife and she mentioned that she said to him
oh you were like, you know, really attractive in real life, something along those lines
And you know, he he liked that, he said oh thank you
And um that was about the extent of the conversation, so um but I don't know
it was funny, that was funny
Um yeah, so gold boom, he's a good guy, would definitely love to meet ford
I'm sure Michael Keaton would be cool too, he was in san Antonio like two years ago or so
and I mean that was like a really big appearance for him, I think that was his first convention ever
so um yeah, it would've been cool to get Keaton, but
yeah, I don't know
I didn't actually make it out to that convention. I think I forget what I had going on
Yeah
So
Mhm
Yes. Anyway, let's see who else
So here's another
example of an auto pen here
So I think this one's from transformers I guess. I think that's what that's from
So you have this whole like envelope full of cards that I think are either either fake or auto pen
or whatever. So I think this was just a straight up Forgery that I got tricked into buying at one point
Um Riz ahmed this was through the mail. This is the secretary
You can't even like see that really, See if I can get the light on there
sign in black, on the black area. Of course john Boyega wrote to him and he was on broadway
Um I believe this is the secretarial as well
Natalie Portman forgery is just a fake autograph
I don't know why I keep the face, but I do. They're all all segregated from my collection uh tucked away nicely
So hopefully when I die, nobody gets confused about them, but whatever
I'll be dead. So what does it matter
A couple more john Boyega goes
So yeah, that's I don't have like a whole lot of um auto pens or secretaries or forgeries on trading cards
They're mostly on photographs
All right, johnny says that he met ford in san Diego at a restaurant and he ran home for the blaster
That's cool. Yeah, jeez man, I don't know if I saw Harrison ford at a restaurant
I don't know if I would
have it in me to like run home and get a blaster and miss him
I would probably just like
be in his aura as much as possible
Um
Yeah, let's see
Matthew, are you getting Macaulay culkin for his private signing? So I did not order and macaulay culkin is all sold out from my understanding
So uh yeah, I will not be getting him. I think he was like 250 bucks
something like that. Um It would have been cool. I mean I really like Home Alone a lot and I watch it every christmas for
sure. Um Home alone one and two for that matter, so it would have been cool
But um I wasn't really in the budget at this time. So uh you know
maybe next time I'm sure, I'm sure it's not not going to be the last time he does a signing
like that's kind of how it goes, like, you know, there's always a lot of big hype after
it's the first time and I mean these things they're so lucrative that after the first signing
I mean like once you get them for one, there's gonna be another, it's like I don't even worry about it anymore
Like the industry has gotten so big, there's so much money behind it that um you don't have to worry about missing assigning anymore because
there's gonna be another opportunity
people can't turn down the money. Even a list celebrities just cannot turn down the money from an autograph signing because it's so
so lucrative. Um
Yeah, so next time I'll get him next time, but it would be cool
Jones says the restaurant was luckily only five blocks from my house and he just sat down
Okay. All right. So, I mean, yeah, I guess if if that were the case
I probably would've ran like hell and got over there. Um
Yeah, that's really cool
Um I don't think I'll ever run into Harrison ford on the street
but uh you know, maybe maybe if I get really lucky, that was that was a pretty lucky coincidence for you
Um Yeah, I feel like I've hardly like ran into any celebrities like randomly on the street, you know
met a bunch of conventions. Um I think the only one that I can actually think of is like the guy who plays Flash Gordon
Like he was going to be appearing at a convention like that same day in san Antonio I happen to be out at a restaurant
I saw him there. Um And that was it. I didn't say anything to him or anything
but um that was like my only in the wild celebrity encounter, I'm pretty sure
Yeah, I mean
I'm sure if I had more opportunities to go to Disneyland or Disney world
I would have run into a lot more celebrities. I know a lot of a lot of encounters happen there
Um
Yeah, okay. Matthew says
look at now the Portman, Sarah Michelle gellar and robert. Downey Jr they've always been tough. Yeah
Yeah, Natalie Portman super tough. Yeah. Through um
we're just talking about signings in general. But
yeah, so they've they've all historically been super tough to like refuse to do a private signing
But yeah, I mean now the floodgates are open for them, they've they've agreed to do them
Um You know, not only does Natalie Portman, she did, she did the private signing with Star's autograph universe and she agreed to
sign the Star Wars items, which was always like, you know, the kind of big question
like if she does assigning is she gonna sign Star Wars because historically she's refused to sign Star Wars because she just is not happy
with that movie and does not really
he's not proud of that role. So she would not sign Star Wars stuff
but when she actually did the signing, she agreed to sign Star Wars stuff
So I mean, you know, it's amazing what like a little bit of money can do to change people's minds
Um But yeah, even after that now, like you can you can get a Natalie Portman autograph for like nothing because she's done all those
she's done tables and had like a couple of different releases where she's done signed editions
So you can get pretty nice looking cut for, you know, basically nothing
Like I'm definitely under 100 bucks easy. So um you know since that first signing where she was like at that point ultra exclusive and
ultra rare now, she's like super common. So yeah, I mean I wouldn't worry about like missing out on a signing or anything like that
because there's always gonna be another opportunity and sometimes the price goes up
Sometimes it goes way down like in Natalie Portman's case. So anyway
thank you guys for watching. I mean my phone is at like 5% right now so it's about to die
Um but definitely appreciate you guys watching and um you know, leave me a comment on some of my videos
If you've got questions, you want to talk, you can always send me a message or head over to the Facebook page
Tales from the collection over there
or on the website. Just hit me up on Tales from the collection
Go to the contact page. You can shoot me an email. Um pretty quick. Great responding
So alright, thanks guys see you later
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