Great Forgers and Famous Fakes: The Manuscript Forgers of America and How They Duped the Experts
Great Forgers and Famous Fakes: The Manuscript Forgers of America and How They Duped the Experts
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Product Details:
Author:
Charles Hamilton
Hardcover:
294 pages
Publisher:
Glenbridge Publishing,
Publication Date:
1996-04
Language:
English
ISBN:
0944435408
Package Length:
11.24 inches
Package Width:
8.8 inches
Package Height:
1.39 inches
Package Weight:
2.82 pounds
Average Customer Rating:
based on 4 reviews
Description:
Charles Hamilton recognizes a faked signature and believes it to be easily identified, and so will the reader of this book-once he knows what to look for. This is information of immense value to the collector and historian. Well-executed forgeries and fakes have fooled dealers and collectors for more than a century. This thoroughly documented book, containing hundreds of examples that show how to identify the best that the most skillful forgers have produced, will provide the expert and the amateur with tools for self-protection. Great Forgers and Famous Fakes is also a chronicle of the careers of America's most adroit and colorful manuscript forgers, telling who they were and how they swindled their victims. The fascinating stories of forgers and their works include: -the poet who forged hundreds of Robert Frost manuscripts -the multimillionaire industrialist and founder of RCA who got his start as a forger-and years later got fooled by his own fake -the A! merican Nazi who forged John Howard Payne's "Home, Sweet Home" -a round-dozen forgers of Abe Lincoln's handwriting
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Review:
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The Enforcer Of SignaturesDec 07, 2008 With lots of righteous, anger Charles Hamilton, an earlier incarnation of America's Most Wanted Bill Walsh, tears through an ever-growing list of forgers who dare dump their wares on an unsuspecting, greedy public and stupid scholars. Hamilton's list of rogue forgers is really just small time criminals, some of who are pretty good at copying someone's handwriting and style. Some of the forgers are incredibly lazy, and mostly depend on "the art of the con" to see them through. Since his case is load is pre-1980, there is no discussion of modern forgeries, with obvious advanced sophistication. The almost certain downfall of all the forgers is that they work alone, and suffer "pride of authorship," so they cannot look at their work with a critical eye, and avoid short-comings and missteps. Hamilton died in 1996, and I understand that he was more flamboyant in reality, than he appears in this scholarly/technical work. A good read, but, I'm sorry, Charlie, but I found myself rooting for the forgers.
Tons of Stories w/Photos of Actual Letters and Documents!Nov 15, 2008 From front jacket:
"There is a romance in the crime of literary or historical forgery. To fabricate the handwriting and thoughts of another person requires much more than adroit penmanship. The successful faker must disjoint himself from his own age and become a part of another time and place. He must think the thought of another era and use its language.
The art of forgery is as old as the alphabet. Anything that is handwritten and has value is worth forging. Today the voracity of collectors of documents, which give us an insight into the secret motives of men and women, has brought about a bull market in forgeries. Every year new and enterprising fakers put forth their wares.
'Great Forgers and Famous Fakes' is a chronicle of the careers and lives of America's most adroit and colorful manuscript forgers, telling us how they lived and how they so cleverly swindled their hapless victims.
Charles Hamilton describes real and faked handwriting and helps us to identify one from the other. This information is of immense value to the collector and historian. Well-executed forgeries and fakes have fooled dealers and collectors for more than a century. This thoroughly documented book, containing hundreds of examples that show how to identify the best that the most skillful forgers have produced, will provide the expert and the amateur with sharpened and efficient tools for self-protection.
The fascinating stories of forgers and their works include:
* the poet who forged hundreds of Robert Frost manuscripts
* the American Nazi who forged John Howard Payne's 'Home, Swee Home'
* A round-dozen forgers of Abe Lincoln's handwriting
* the historian who faked a document to create a new national Independence Day
* the great financier turned forger who fabricated even the autographs of his own friends
* Thomas Chancellor, who sold a 'unique' pocket bible inscribed by Stonewall Jackson and promptly sold 8 more.
* Eugene Field II, who forged his father's poems
This new and enlarged edition of 'Great Forgers and Famous Fakes' also includes information about Mark Hofmann, the forgery of the famous salamander letter, and the Mormon murders."
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Fascinating, but discouraging at the same time...Jan 19, 2005 I've always been interested in old documents and autographs, real or faked, so I probably would have gotten around to reading Charles Hamilton's book anyway. I'm surprised that I missed it back in 1980 when it first was published. However, I made a point of getting a copy last week because this work was mentioned in another book about literary forgery I was reading. That one, "The Poet and the Murderer" by Simon Worrall, is also worth reading. In his chapter on the history of forgery, Worrall mentions Hamilton's book and one of the many forgers described in it, Thomas McNamara, a New England poet and college teacher who was nabbed in 1977 for selling fake Robert Frost manuscripts. Well, I got a bad feeling in my stomach when I read that brief reference. Back in 1962-63, my college freshman English teacher was Thomas Edward Francis McNamara, who was brilliant in the classroom, and became my friend outside of it until he was let go by Rider College (now University) in New Jersey. MY Tom McNamara was a poet with a special interest in Robert Frost. He went back to New England in 1964 and I lost track of him, but I always wondered what became of him. I had to get the Hamilton book to find out if the felonious McNamara was my long-lost friend. Sadly, he is, or was, and is covered in Chapter 14 of Hamilton's book. His own poetry was published under his first three names, and I have a vanity press volume from 1961 he inscribed to me. According to Hamilton, my friend Tom was a fraud, who claimed a phony master's degree from Wayne State University to get college jobs, and who was indeed popular with students but seldom kept a job for long. He ended up entering a guilty plea in federal court in 1978 and was sentenced to a year in the federal pen, (which sounds like a pun when describing a forger.) How sad. I wonder what became of him after? I would like to know if he was an undiagnosed bi-polar or schizophrenic, or just plain evil? He made Frost and other American poets come alive for me. Why wasn't he content just to be a good instructor? Hamilton's book does not answer any of these questions, since the McNamara case was fresh when it was published. The rest of the book details forgers going back nearly two centuries. While Hamilton is not the most skilled writer, he obviously knows his autographs, and the book is full of tips on how to spot faked Lincoln, Washington, Ben Franklin and other letters. It is fascinating that forgery has such a long history and that there have been so many brilliant practitioners. The discouraging aspect is that it makes the hobby of collecting autographs and letters a risky one, indeed. Clearly, there are more fake items on the market than real ones, for the more famous historical figures. I have a modest collection myself, mostly obtained by my sister in the '50's and myself in the '60's and 70's, of actors, race car drivers, and baseball players. I can vouch for all but the ballplayers, which I purchased from strangers via the mail. If there was a person of Charles Hamilton's talents in my area, I'd pay him to take a look at the signatures for which I can't vouch personally. I hope my Ted Williams, for instance, is the real thing, but I'll bet there are fakes out there now. Since mine was purchased 40 years ago, I think it is likely authentic. Hamilton's book, however, will definitely make a skeptic out of the casual collector. For that reason alone, it is a book worth owning.
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Excellent reference bookSep 02, 2003 This book reads like an autobiography of every famous forger. I found this book very insightful and helpfull, the way Hamilton deduces the forgers finest forgerys is incredible!! There are examples of almost every famous forger. Hamilton is an absolute master at the art of autographs, he share is this book his secrets for uncovering forgers and their tricks. If you are a collecor and think you might have an original Lincoln,Washington or even a Franklin you might want to check again!!!
based on 4 reviews
