Is your Beatles autograph even real?
That Beatles record some distant relative brags about being signed, or that T-shirt or poster with a scribble from the boys themselves, even the bits of merch fetching thousands at auctions, claiming to have been personally autographed by all four of The Beatles—yeah, that could all be fake.
The politics of an autograph is complex and is only being compounded as technology progresses. Now, we see some celebrities refusing to sign certain items, knowing for sure that they’re going straight to eBay. These sellers, who push to the front of crowds, steal time away from fans only to go and flog the piece of merch the celebs have just scribbled on. There are also instances of people refusing to sign things in specific colours of pen, knowing it makes it easier for these touts to replicate their autograph and plaster it onto unofficial items that the person has never actually touched.
But for as long as celebrities have existed, people have wanted their autographs, and as long as autographs have been given out, there have been arguments and stories regarding the validity of these scribbles.
There are several famous cases of forgeries, such as the story of Lee Israel, who made a whole career out of forging fake letters from celebrities, even stealing real-life correspondence from notable people to replace it with her own fakes. Inspiring the film, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, her forgeries were so believable that they even threw off historians! However, in this instance, the people doing the faking were the band themselves. George Harrison once admitted that what someone might think a unique piece of merch signed by all four members might actually have just been done by one.
Stuart Maconie, the DJ and music journalist, recalled a tale told by fellow writer Mark Ellen, who was told the secret directly by the ‘quiet Beatle’ himself. “Mark has gone to interview George and had taken along his treasured vinyl copy of Revolver in the hope of getting an autograph,” he writes, setting the scene. Anyone would do it. No matter how professional you were trying to be or how shy the presence of a legend makes you, no one could turn down the opportunity to have their classic album signed by one of the men who made it.
But then Harrison offered more. “At the end of the interview, he proffered the album with a polite request for a signature. ‘Yes, sure’, said George. ‘Do you want them all?’” Despite being the only Beatle in the room, Harrison offered to sign Ellen’s record from all four of them, revealing that The Beatles had all, at one point, become masters at forging one another’s penmanship.
“George explained that at the height of Beatlemania, each Fab had become adept at the others’ signature for reasons of practicality and speed,” Maconie explained in his retelling. It makes sense. Think about those images of the band absolutely swarmed by fans, each pushing a notepad or a record or a scrap of paper in their direction.
It would take forever if they had to pass each one between the four, but if one name was missed, the fan would be let down. So, the solution was, obviously, identity fraud. Each member could become the other; the owner of that bit of paper would be none the wiser.
Sure, this revelation might leave grandparents everywhere devastated, looking at their prized possession of signed vinyl and wondering if it is perhaps one big hoax and if all four of those signatures actually just came from Ringo Starr. Maconie’s friend took it the best you possibly could; “Mark ended up with a copy of Revolver signed by all four Beatles, or rather, three of them forged by Geroge Harrison, which is possible[ly] even better, don’t you think?” And I, for one, certainly agree.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.