Real or Fake: Studies in Authentication

By Joe Nickell

The man who is “the embodiment of the Mythbusters, Sherlock Holmes, and Richard Feynman” weeds out the treasures from the shams in artifact investigations (Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic magazine).

Detailing how the pros determine whether an Abraham Lincoln signature is forged or if a photograph of Emily Dickinson is genuine, Nickell, a leader in forgery detection and forensic investigation, provides the essential tools necessary to identify counterfeits. In this general introduction to the principles of authentication, Nickell provides readers with step-by-step explanations of the science used to detect falsified documents, photographs, and other objects, illustrating methods used on hit shows such as Antiques Roadshow and History Detectives.

Including fascinating cases drawn from Nickell’s illustrious career, Real or Fake combines historical and scientific investigations to reveal reproductions and genuine objects. Nickell explains the warning signs of forgery, such as patching and unnatural pen lifts; chronicles the evolution of writing instruments, inks, and papers; shows readers how to date photographs, papers, and other materials; and traces the development of photographic processes since the mid-nineteenth century. Lavishly illustrated with examples of replicas and authentic objects inspected by Nickell, Real or Fake includes case studies of alleged artifacts including Jack the Ripper’s diary, a draft of the Gettysburg Address, notes by Charles Dickens, Jefferson Davis’s musket, and debris from the Titanic.

“An expert on antique ink and paper, and the forensic analysis of historic documents.” —The New Yorker

“Nickell advocates a multifaceted approach that looks at provenance, content, material composition, and scientific analysis.” —Maine Antique Digest

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 17, 2009
• ISBN: 9780813139104

Book preview

REAL OR FAKE

REAL OR FAKE

Studies in Authentication

Joe Nickell

Copyright © 2009 by The University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,

serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre

College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,

The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College,

Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University,

Morehead State University, Murray State University,

Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,

University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,

and Western Kentucky University.

All rights reserved.

Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky

663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008

www.kentuckypress.com

09   10   11   12   13             5   4   3   2   1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nickell, Joe.

Real or fake : studies in authentication / Joe Nickell.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8131-2534-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Forgery. 2. Fraud. I. Title.

HV6675.N53 2009

364.16'68—dc22                     2008051816

This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting

the requirements of the American National Standard

for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I. Documents

1. Investigating Documents

2. Diary of Jack the Ripper

3. Novel by an American Slave

4. Lincoln’s Lost Gettysburg Address

5. An Outlaw’s Scribblings

6. Out of the Archives

Part II. Photographs

7. Photo Sleuthing

8. A Second Photo of Emily Dickinson

9. Likenesses of Lincoln

10. Assassin or Look-alike

11. From the Album

Part III. Other Artifacts

12. Authenticating Artworks and Other Artifacts

13. Lost Icon Found

14. Jefferson Davis’s Musket

15. Debris from the Titanic

16. Off the Shelf

References

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

Evolution of handwriting

Writing implements

Pens and the lines they produce

Backlighting reveals characteristic lines in paper with a laid pattern

Class and individual characteristics of handwriting

John F. Kennedy autograph signed by a secretary

Facsimiles of Confederate currency, a handwritten document, and a wanted poster

Publisher Robert Smith examines pages from alleged Ripper diary

Photographic exemplar of handwriting from 1888 Dear Boss . . . Jack the Ripper letter

Applying electronic static detection analysis to alleged Ripper diary

Last page of alleged Ripper diary fails to match Maybrick’s script

Handwriting in Maybrick’s will is completely unlike that in alleged Ripper diary

The Bondwoman’s Narrative, perhaps the earliest novel written by a black woman

Examining the alleged slave-written narrative with a stereomicroscope

Handwriting style of The Bondwoman’s Narrative is consistent with 1850s authorship

Evidence that ink was wiped off by the little finger before drying

Vermilion paste wafers used to attach slips of paper over replaced text

Pinholes reveal a manuscript bound amateurishly using needle and thread

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in his rugged handwriting

Ostendorf copy of the Gettysburg Address

Purported autograph of Lincoln

Card pasted inside gives alleged provenance of Mesilla sheriff’s book

Cartoon in purported jail notebook

Writing purportedly by W. H. Bonney—Billy the Kid

Forger’s tremor and ink feathering are signs of an amateurish forgery

Authentic writing of Pat Garrett

Alleged Garrett writing obviously not penned by the famous sheriff

Bogus promissory note signed by mountain man Jim Bridger

Flyleaf of Samuel Johnson’s 1825 Dictionary with notes allegedly by Charles Dickens

C. D. monogram was drawn rather than written

Alleged 1816 Daniel Boone letter on genuine old paper

Signature exhibits signs of forgery

Identifying daguerreotypes

Tintypes are direct-positive images

Revenue stamps affixed to the backs of old photographs

Stand magnifier

Cabinet photograph is actually a copy of a daguerreotype portrait

Authentic photograph of Emily Dickinson and a questioned carte de visite

Tintype thought to depict Abraham Lincoln

Photograph of Minnehaha Falls

Sketch by Lincoln artist and collector Lloyd Ostendorf

Michael Eddowes’s The Oswald File

The real Oswald and an impostor

Nazi SS identification card

Photographs from Demjanjuk’s SS identification card and a 1947 driver’s license match

Photo of Milo Welton from the Civil War

Scene from Alien Autopsy television program

Sculpture made from a cast of the original

Microanalyst Walter C. McCrone

X-ray fluorescence is used to test a Civil War minié ball

Fire-damaged religious icon

Infrared photograph of icon

Antique firearm thought to belong to Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis medallion embedded in stock

Musket’s lock plate has place and date stamped into metal

Medallion to Jefferson Davis President of the Confederate States of America

Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where many victims of the Titanic were buried

Piece of wood panel from the Titanic

Portion of a door

Bolt from a companionway

Replica deck chair from the Titanic

Detail of a tag attached to the bolt

Questioned Continental Congress coin of 1776

Stamped word copy reveals the coin to be a fake

Fake Stradivarius violin

Photograph accompanying an heirloom fake violin

Printing craftsman Paul Evans Holbrook

Holbrook examines a Stradivarius label

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The work featured in this book spans decades, and I must acknowledge the efforts of many people. In addition to those mentioned in the text, I am especially grateful to some who have passed away: autograph expert Charles Hamilton, who tutored me in the fine art of forgery and its detection; photographer Robert H. van Outer, whose expertise was always at my service; and microanalyst Walter C. McCrone, who provided inspiration with his sophisticated analyses and his motto, Think Small.

I am also indebted to many experts for both their professional assistance and their friendship. Among them are librarian Timothy Binga (Center for Inquiry), forensic anthropologist Emily Craig, forensic analyst John F. Fischer, identification expert Alfred V. Iannarelli, ink chemist Antonio Cantu (U.S. Secret Service, retired), forensic document examiner Gideon Epstein (U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, retired), and historical manuscripts authority Kenneth W. Rendell. Gerald Richards (formerly a forensic document examiner for the FBI) was kind enough to read the manuscript and make many helpful suggestions, as was Antonio Cantu. Any errors or deficiencies are, of course, my own responsibility.

I am further indebted to the editors and publishers of several of my earlier works from which portions of this treatise were abridged or adapted (listed in the references under my name).

I am grateful to Paul E. Loynes for his expert manuscript preparation. I also wish to thank the entire crew at the University Press of Kentucky for their continued encouragement, professional assistance, and friendship. They are a pleasure to work with.

For their patience and support, as always, I thank my colleagues at the Center for Inquiry—notably, chairman Paul Kurtz, CEO Ronald Lindsay, and CSI executive director Barry Karr—and my family, including my wife, Diana Harris; my daughter, Cherie Roycroft; and my grandchildren, Chase, Tyner, and Alexis.

INTRODUCTION

The distant past presents us with countless mysteries that challenge our collective intellect and imagination. Time typically obscures the contexts, erases the links, and removes the ancillary evidence that would allow us to fully comprehend ancient events. Yet the past can also yield fragments—even whole treasures—that serve as clues, pieces of the puzzles that engage us.

The Recovered Past

For years, I have kept a file labeled The Recovered Past. Here are some examples of the clippings it contains.

Found: A Legendary City that History Forgot (1995) reports on a remarkable discovery by a team of archaeologists led by UCLA’s Giorgio Buccellati. After eight years of excavation, they located Urkesh, the fabled capital of the Hurrians, beneath a modern town in Syria. Many historians had doubted the existence of either the people or the city, due to a paucity of evidence: only brief mention in the Old Testament and other ancient literature and a pair of bronze lions inscribed Urkesh. The archaeologists discovered clay figures and pottery, metal tools, and the signature seals of the ancient city’s king and queen dating from some 4,300 years ago. Buccellati observed that the discovery would give the neglected Hurrians and their rich city their deserved place in history. The footnote will become a chapter.

Unknown Goya Canvas Discovered (1996) relates how a previously unrecorded painting by Spanish master Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) was found by workers renovating a government building in Madrid. The eight- by six-foot canvas, discovered in an attic storeroom, depicts redeemed souls being swept from purgatory up into heaven. It was tentatively dated to the early 1780s, when Goya painted mostly religious themes. A Prado museum curator who helped authenticate the painting enthused, From the moment we saw it, it was marvelous.

Smithsonian Acquires Long-Lost Photo of Noted Abolitionist (Ruane 1996) details how a missing portrait of radical abolitionist John Brown resurfaced after being presumed lost for most of the twentieth century. A pair of collectors spotted the daguerreotype—the original of an image thought to exist only in copies—at an auction house in Pittsburgh. It had been mistaken for the image of obscure nineteenth-century novelist George Lippard. The collectors purchased it for $12,000 and then sold it to the Smithsonian for $129,000. Curator of photographs Mary Panzer, noting that Brown’s image had been recorded by black daguerreotypist Augustus Washington at a time when both men were attempting to rid America of slavery, stated: You don’t come across something this powerful very often. I feel very fortunate. I don’t think there will be anything more important that I will ever buy for any museum anywhere.

Mary Shelley’s Lost Children’s Story Found in Italian Palazzo (1998) presents the discovery of a thirty-four-page manuscript by the famed author of Frankenstein and wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The story, known to have existed from a mention in Mary Shelley’s journal and in a letter written by her father, was assumed to be irretrievably lost. However, it was found by Andres and Cristina Dazzi in a wooden chest in a neglected room of the family mansion in the Tuscany hills. Andres was descended from Lady Mountcashell, a member of the Shelleys’ circle when they sojourned in Italy. The story, titled Maurice, or the Fisher’s Cot, had been written for Lady Mountcashell’s eleven-year-old daughter. It is a morality tale about a boy who runs away from a cruel stepfather and is adopted by a grandfatherly fisherman. Two experts authenticated the manuscript. Claire Tomalin, author of Shelley and His World, described the story as a very exciting find, and Catherine Payling, curator of the Keats-Shelley Memorial House in Rome, stated, The discovery adds greatly to our understanding of Mary Shelley’s mind and imagination.

The file goes on and on: Dead Sea Scroll Gives Up Its Secret (Schmemann 1997), 4,500-Year-Old Family Tomb of Governor Found in Egypt (1998), Ancient Texts Shine New Light on Taoism: Find Is Likened to Dead Sea Scrolls (Ribadeneira 1998), "Titantic’s Locater Finds Two Sunken Phoenician Vessels (Kilian 1999), Draft of Eichmann Memoir Discovered (Geitner 1999), Ancient Works of Archimedes to Be Restored and Studied (Webber 1999), Russia to Display What It Says Is a Fragment of Hitler’s Skull (2000), Expert Says ‘Lost’ Score Is Mozart’s" (Leeman 2001). Historical treasures continue to appear—from an archaeological dig, a neglected attic, or some other cache—as if from forgotten time capsules.

Treasures can turn up in the most unlikely places. For instance, a 1,200-year-old Psalter was unearthed by a construction worker in an Irish bog. Officials from Ireland’s National Museum in Dublin said they were impressed that the Book of Psalms had survived for such a length of time in boggy terrain and that the worker had been able to halt his mechanical digger fast enough to keep the Psalter from being destroyed. A museum news release called the discovery the greatest find ever from a European bog (Cowell 2006).

Like most authentication specialists, I have helped bring some lost treasures to light. For example, while in graduate school, I took a course in colonial American literature, taught by noted scholar John Shawcross, and became intrigued by one of the most perplexing literary mysteries of that era: the missing edition of Ebenezer Cooke’s Hudibrastic satire The Sot-weed Factor. Cooke published the first edition in 1708 and the third in 1731, but not a single copy of the second edition could be found—until I discovered it had been on the shelf in plain view all along! It happens that in 1730 Cooke had published a sequel, Sotweed Redivivus (which could be translated Sotweed reissued), and that his handwritten notes design’d for a preface to this Second edition of The Sot-weed Factorwere similar in many words and phrases to those in the preface of Sotweed Redivivus. I recognized that the latter was, indeed, the missing edition. The discovery, published as part of my doctoral dissertation, subsequently appeared in one of my books (Nickell 2005, 110–22) and in a critical journal (Nickell 2006a).

While doing research for another book (Nickell 1990), I became fascinated by the history of the first paper mill in the early American West, founded by Craig, Parkers and Company in 1793. Its exact location—somewhere on Royal Spring Branch in Georgetown, Kentucky—had been lost, and I set out to find it, alternating between searches of land records and visits to the creek (on one of these visits, I fell into a hole on the bank, emerging unhurt but covered with burrs). Eventually, local resident David Stuart and I discovered that what had appeared to be a rock outcropping was actually a stone foundation. Kentucky archaeologist Nancy O’Malley subsequently visited the spot with us, along with a local historian and a photographer. She showed us the outline on the ground where the old mill pond had been and made other important observations. She then prepared a survey form to document the features as a Kentucky archaeological site (Nickell 1994c, 22).

In another case, I was able to supply the who, what, where, when, and why of a homely little notebook that had turned up in my home county of Morgan in eastern Kentucky. It had been found behind an office cabinet when the historic courthouse was being renovated. I studied it for some time, observing that—because it contained jotted notes on collecting taxes, impaneling jurors, and making arrests—it must have been a sheriff’s book. It bore scattered dates in the early 1850s, at which time William Mynhier (later an officer in the Confederacy) was sheriff. I was able to compare the notations with recorded specimens of his handwriting and establish that it had indeed been his personal pocket notebook. Its discovery in the office of the circuit court clerk was explained by Mynhier’s having been elected to that post after serving as sheriff. One interesting feature of the notebook was a list of jurors’ names for the county’s only hanging—carried out by Sheriff Mynhier in late 1853.

Apart from my own uncovering of treasures, I have often helped others by authenticating—or not—their documents, photographs, and other artifacts. I have been consulted on some very famous and controversial cases. And in some of them—the Shroud of Turin, for example (Nickell 1998)—I have weighed in with my own opinions, sometimes with the encouragement of interested outsiders.

My entry into the world of authentication began early and progressed slowly. As a child, I merged some of my collections—stamps, fossils, heirlooms—and an occasional borrowed item, thus establishing a museum in my upstairs playroom at about the age of nine. Even then, I was aware that occasional items, such as a tiny pre-Columbian Inca figure a friend of my mother’s had brought me from Peru, were probably not authentic. I also knew, of course, that my Declaration of Independence was reproduced on parchment paper and antiqued to look old.

Through high school and college, I ran a profitable summertime signpainting business that developed my hands-on skills in pen calligraphy and brush lettering (using dozens of historical and modern styles), the mixing of paints and varnishes, gilding, silk-screening, copying trademarks and pictures, altering and repairing commercial artworks, and other crafts that would prove useful to an authenticator. In high school I was president of the Chemistry Club, and in college I learned other analytical skills, such as how to use a light microscope (in microbiology and botany labs). I majored first in art, learning the history and techniques of painting, sculpture, printmaking, and so forth, and worked as an art gallery assistant. Then I majored in English, which helped prepare me (much later) for advanced studies in linguistics, literary investigation, and folklore.

My checkered career—modeled somewhat on the lives of participatory journalist George Plimpton and the Great Impostor Ferdinand Waldo Demara—included stints as a carnival pitchman, stage magician and mentalist, private investigator and undercover operative, and assorted other personas, including paranormal investigator (see www.joenickell.com). All these were useful in the process of sorting the real from the illusory. I also worked in a couple of museums, completing a course in museology from the Canadian Museums Association, and today I am curator of a virtual museum (www.skeptiseum.org).

Meanwhile, while doing graduate work and teaching at the University of Kentucky, I began an extensive collection that culminated—ten years later—in the publication of my profusely illustrated book Pen, Ink, & Evidence: A Study of Writing and Writing Materials for the Penman, Collector and Document Detective (1990). To produce that book, I studied and imitated old writings, and I learned to cut quill pens, concoct ink from oak galls, make paper, and apply sealing wax—among many other useful crafts. I practiced how to decipher antiquated scribbles, use ultraviolet light to read faded texts, and scan documents with a stereomicroscope to reveal hidden clues. I researched watermarks, studied how erasures and corrections were made, and endeavored to identify the various types of pens from the strokes they produced. I sought the raison d’être of writing sand, collected ink recipes, and cataloged stationers’ embossments. My friend, the late Robert H. van Outer, made hundreds of professional photographs for the book, illustrating everything from advertising blotters to Zaner-method copybooks—all items contained in my collection now at the University of Kentucky.

During the course of my research, I would occasionally be asked—by a dealer or a collector or someone acquainted with an archivist or some other person who knew me—to take a look at some questioned object, typically a document, and determine whether it was genuine, a forgery, or a reproduction. As I realized that my increasingly specialized knowledge could be useful in solving document cases, I also began to take up the art of forgery, tutored in part by one of my mentors, manuscript expert Charles Hamilton. I promised him that if he helped me learn to produce forgeries as a means of learning how to better detect them, I would never turn to a life of crime.

Eventually, I also began to study old photographs, a pursuit that led to more cases and culminated in my Camera Clues: A Handbook for Photographic Investigation (1994a). Another book, focusing on historical enigmas—Unsolved History: Investigating Mysteries of the Past (Nickell 2005)—included questioned artifacts other than documents and photos, such as a Daniel Boone rifle and the Shroud of Turin.

Some of my early cases were quite simple. For example, even from across the counter of a bookshop, it was possible to identify as fake a document signed Daniel Boone that the bookseller had hoped to authenticate. A closer inspection revealed that it was merely a photocopy, antiqued by what appeared to be tea stains. But even at a distance, one could see that the ink was positively black—unlike the rusty brown color of the oxidized iron-gall ink of genuine Boone writings.

More challenging was a carte de visite photograph of a famous Confederate commander signed in ink RE Lee/Genl. A collector had purchased it at a price that was disarmingly—and thus suspiciously—low. Although the photo was authentic for the period, magnification revealed tremors in the pen strokes, indicative of a slowly drawn forgery. They were not attributable to the shakiness that can result from age. And notably, genuine Lee signatures from the last year of his life had been smoothly penned. That fact, coupled with tests showing the ink was inconsistent with inks of the period, revealed the autograph to be a forgery (Nickell 1990, 188–89).

Much more challenging were some of my later cases—not because they were fundamentally more difficult to assess, but because their high-profile, controversial nature meant