Kal-L

Fair enough, and discussion is what these boards are all about. I’m a life long Superman fan, a heavy collector and friend to many in the community, including those who knew Franco well. I have several signed Shuster items, but his original art has eluded me (so far). However I do know the owners of several of these pieces, as well as others attributed to Shuster. I certainly cannot claim to be an expert, I’m just following the breadcrumbs. But just to be clear I don’t know who the consigner was

Well it’s certainly an interesting discussion. We know at least three of these have gone through a well respected auction house and were housed in an established collection of impeccable pedigree, another sits with a well known collector on CAF where it’s been posted for 15 years without so much a question about its lineage, and I know that at least the signature (not necessarily the art) has been verified by JSA/BAS or both on at least another two (the AC1 that started all this and the private sale I mention). None of that says these are real, but thats a lot of circumstantial evidence that that there may be something to these. Like others I do believe that these were all done by the same person, I’m just starting to think that person was Joe Shuster. Maybe I’m a sucker, but the strange thing is the more I look at this the more inclined I am to believe it. I wish Joe was still around so we could ask him.

So look at my earlier post, this is what I'm referencing when I say that Joe has few large recreations of AC1, Superman and Superman #14 floating around apparently all part of the same commission near the end of his career (I've heard numbers between 12-17 of them, but who knows). All similar, but with some variation (if someone was trying to copy they're doing a poor job and that I actually think bodes well for them). You see 2 copies of Superman #1 above, here for example are copies of 3 of the known #14's: First one sold by Hakes from the Franco Toscanini collection (where one of the AC1, and Superman #1's also came from) https://www.hakes.com/Auction/ItemDetail/220318/SUPERMAN-14-COVER-IMAGE-ORIGINAL-ART-BY-SUPERMAN-CREATOR-JOE-SHUSTER Second one privately owned and posted on CAF since 2005: https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=92888 Third one recently sold by a very well known Superman Collector, but since it was a private sale I'll only share the pic. Food for thought. I'm glad the AC1 auction was taken down until some questions can be addressed, especially since the posting had some serious errors...but I'm not so quick to dismiss the authenticity.

It seems to be the popular opinion that this recreation is not authentic, but I’m not so sure. Joe is known to have signed preprinted copies of his drawings (even some colored in by fans), but I’ve never heard of him signing pieces that he didn’t draw either original or preprinted copies of originals. Additionally, he was generous to friends (including Gary) in terms of giving them art, but he almost always inscribed/personalized them unless it was a commission piece. This brings us to the DC Comics label on the piece with was something Joe added to pieces for which he was paid; I can’t begin to understand the legal reasons for this. So if this was Coddington fan art, and even if I we were inclined to believe Joe would sign it, I’d still be surprised by the lack of personalization and the DC Comics label. Finally, as far as legend (noted earlier in this post), I’ve heard for many years that Joe was paid to do a dozen large recreations late in life of popular Superman covers (AC1, Superman #1, and Superman #14). So having a couple variations of the AC1 covers actually makes sense, and “the story” is similarly supported when you go back and look at the large recreations that are out there (Hakes sales, Comiclink, and some posts on Comicartfans) as they are almost always these covers. I’d love to hear Hake’s weigh in on their vetting process, but Franco Toscanini didn’t put things in his collection lightly. While this copy is not his, I’m inclined to believe that if his was legitimate (I believe it was) that this one likely is as well. Just my opinion... Regards, Ryan