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Hi and welcome to another episode of collectibles chat, I'm Steve's Zarelli. Autopens. If you're an autograph collector, hopefully you know what they are. It's one of the many landmines that you need to navigate in the autograph collecting hobby. We're going to take a closer look at them, help you identify them, and dispel some common myths as well, I'll also have a collectibles tip at the end of this video. Thanks for joining me and let's go. So, what is an Autopen? An Autopen is a machine that, based upon a template created from someone's real signature, will sign their name. Essentially you have a metal armature that will hold a real pen and following a matrix that's based on someone's signature. It signs their name. Autopens as we know them today were invented sometime in the 1940s, however they didn't come into wider use until the late 1950s. At that time, politicians started using them, the NASA astronauts obviously used Autopens to respond to their mail, and over the years, we've seen Hollywood celebrities use them, authors use them... we even recently had incidents where Hillary Clinton had a book signing and supposedly brought all these books that were signed in advance. So she was handing them out... it was later discovered they were all Autopen signatures. There's been speculation that a Michelle Obama signed book that was sold through Barnes & Noble online indeed bears Autopen signatures... at this time none of the major authenticators will pass these books. And in 2016 when Donald Trump was running for president they issued a commemorative edition of the Art of the Deal that donors would get if they donated a certain amount to his campaign. These commemorative editions all had Autopen signatures. The takeaway is this: if you're dealing with a celebrity who supposedly signs through the mail or through other sources, there's always a risk that it could be an Autopen. So be warned. Now that you know that Autopens are a risk, how do you avoid them? The key to avoiding them is understanding how the machine works and the characteristics you need to look for to avoid Autopen signatures. The first one is this... as I mentioned earlier, the Autopen signs based upon a programmed template. So what that means is it essentially signs the same signature every single time. Once you identify an Autopen pattern and what an Autopen signature looks like, when you find a near exact match to that, you know that must also be an Autopen signature because a human will never sign the same way twice. You can sign your name a thousand times and there's always going to be some significant differences between your signatures. Whether it's a slight formation change, or the spacing or the proportion of letters, it's almost impossible to sign your name exactly the same way twice as a real human. But with a machine, it's going to do it the same way every single time. So that's the first trick in identifying Autopen signatures. Another characteristic of Autopen signatures is that they are very uniform. I call it like it has a dead, flat look to it. There's no variation in pressure or speed throughout the signature. It's like it was applied very uniformly and evenly and it just doesn't look natural. The other thing to look out for is, in some cases, you can identify kind of like a quivering.. it's the machine armature are probably vibrating as it's going through the signature. You don't see it at arm's length, but on close exam, you can kind of see this quivering look. This Apollo 11 signed lithograph is a good example that shows many Autopen traits. Let's take a closer look. We'll start with the Armstrong autograph. You can see this unusual quivering or vibration throughout the signature. This is not something you'd expect to see in a hand-signed autograph. This is from where the armature was vibrating as it was signing. You can see it throughout the entire signature... very unnatural looking. Collins demonstrates some of the same traits. You can see it here in the L and the back of the C how it quivered. Looking at the Aldrin, this is really kind of a mess here. I don't know what happened, but you have weird quivering and it's malformed. This is not something you would ever see in a hand-signed autograph. This Apollo 12 is another example that shows the Autopen effect. It's really evident in the Gordon signature... much quivering and vibration as the armature chugged its way slowly through the signature. You can see that throughout... very unnatural looking... no smoothness or flow. Sometimes authentic signatures can be mixed in with Autopens. This STS 99 shuttle crew is an example of that. You have a hand sign Janice Voss and a hand-signed Theil, yet the Mohro, Kregel, Gorey and Kavandi were all signed by Autopen. On the hand signed examples, you can see there's a variation in pressure... there's a smoothness to them. And looking at the Autopens, they're all very flat and dead looking. No variation in pressure. All four of the autopens are signed with the same exact pressure as each other... and you can kind of see the quivering... the strange machine effect throughout as well. As a professional Authenticator, not a week passes by where someone doesn't contact me and say, "Well, so-and-so said this was an Autopen... and I see a difference here... I don't think it is." So, let's dispel this myth right away. Theoretically Autopen signatures should all be identical, however that's not the reality of the matter. If you have a signature that's 95% identical but there's one little line that's a tiny bit different than another line, you can't say, "Oh, that's not an Autopen." That's absolutely untrue. They're probably both Autopens if things overlap 95 percent and there's just a tiny variation. That's probably just because it went through the Autopen machine and the armature wiggled some way or someone shoved it through too quickly. These kind of things create small variations that can be differences between Autopens, but if the whole rest of the thing matches up and it still has that Autopen look, I'll tell you it's an Autopen. Here let's take a look at this. Here's an example of two Apollo 17 signed presentations. These were both signed by Autopen machines using the same patterns. However, there's some slight differences. Let's take a closer look. You can see the Schmitts are identical... exactly what you'd expect to see with Autopen signatures. Looking at the Evans, there are some differences. You can see the curl in the R and the shape of the R is slightly different, although the ON is identical and the same with Evans... the E is slightly different in a little curlicue on the top, yet the rest of the last name is exactly the same. These were both signed by the same Autopen pattern. Looking at the Cernan you can see significant differences. The "Cernan" is exactly the same, yet look at the difference in the Gs. These were both signed by the same Autopen machine and they're certainly Autopens... this is what happens when the armature vibrates differently or it's run through the machine inconsistently. There can be slight differences. So, just because there's a tiny difference in an Autopen signature, doesn't mean that it's not an Autopen. To sum it up: you need to understand how the Autopen works and that helps you understand the characteristics you may see in Autopen signatures. If it matches an established Autopen pattern... if the signature has that flat, dead look with no variation in pressure or speed throughout... and lastly, if it has that weird kind of micro- quivering look on close exam... chances are you have an Autopen. And now for a collectables tip. My advice to you is don't follow the herd. In Episode 5, I mentioned focus on quality rather than quantity, and this is kind of a related corollary to that. You know you'll see things in the marketplace all the time... what I call them is mass-produced collectibles, and they may be very nice. Oh, Steiners having a signing and you know they have Jeter signed photograph... and there's a thousand of the same photograph... exactly the same... yeah, it's nice and all, but wouldn't you rather have like a vintage signed Jeter that's like kind of unique and rare? Don't follow the herd... ... have discriminating taste. I ran into an interesting situation this last week. I posted the the book that had thirty-three astronaut signatures on Instagram. So some guy responded like, "oh, I want that... I'd love it someday." I jokingly replied, "Well then, just buy it ..right." He replied back to me... he said, "I'm 12 years old, I can't buy it," and you know kind of like blew me away a bit. Like wow... this kid is 12 years old and he's really got good taste. He's got better taste than a lot of much more seasoned collectors. This was a really unique vintage item and this kid was, you know, twelve years old and he's interested in it. I replied back saying, "Man you know, for 12 you're doing great. Ttick with it and someday you're gonna have a world-class collection." So, don't follow the herd. Don't you know, buy the latest mass-produced output from some company that just does tons of private signings. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that stuff, but if you really want to have a unique special collection that's going to turn people's eyes, look for unique items. Look for not just quality, but things that are different. Something to consider. I hope you enjoyed this video. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and all that stuff... I have my links at the bottom. Hope to see you again soon. Thanks for joining me and until next time, happy collecting.