[quote="AppleLove"]I've been collecting steadily for a couple of years now, and I'm pretty sure I can tell a fake from an authentic autograph. The only thing is, my brother has been trying to discourage me by saying my autographs are nothing more than a bunch of preprints and secretarial ones. My question is, how can I determine whether an autograph is secretarial or the real McCoy? Thanks for all replies.[/quote]

Hi AppleLove

Secretarials are perhaps the most difficult to detect. A skilled secretary can emulate signatures very well. In some cases, a secretary may have been signing for so many years that even experts can't tell the difference between real and secretarial. Sometimes a secretarial signature may appear to be more "deliberate" and slowly written. Also look for loops -- sometimes secretarial loops are looser and more "feminine" than authentic. (This assumes it's a female secretary signing for her male boss, of course.) If there is an inscription, does it match signature? Sometimes secretaries let their guard down when writing inscriptions and you can tell the inscription handwriting doesn't look like it came from the same person who signed the item.

--Daniel 8)

I think the only known secretarials that I know of are Keifer Sutherland and Paul Newman if you check their TTM signings both are done in the same handwriting and look very different from IP successes and those that are sold as authentic.
But generally its difficult to tell secretarial and most is just speculation

I agree thats it a good idea to compare your success with others and I also agree that sometimes IP successes are a bit scruffy due to the pressure there under when signing. some of my IP successes at football matches and things are very scruffy and dont always look like there sposd to.

PP or autopen can be quite easy to spot, 1stly if every1 elses success is exactly the same.
also if something is PP, u will notice that the signature is actually part of the photo rather than noticing that its been written over the gloss of the pic it will be part of it. difficult to explain in words.

get something from studio fan mail and ull c what blatant PP llok like and compare from there.

I've been collecting steadily for a couple of years now, and I'm pretty sure I can tell a fake from an authentic autograph. The only thing is, my brother has been trying to discourage me by saying my autographs are nothing more than a bunch of preprints and secretarial ones. My question is, how can I determine whether an autograph is secretarial or the real McCoy? Thanks for all replies.