Stan Lee/Todd McFarlane Real or Not? 3 3

[PEiny]

Hey everyone, first post.  I just picked this up on an auction for a good price.  Probably too good to be true.  I'm especially skeptical of the Stan Lee one, but not all that confident in the McFarlane either.  Thoughts?

[Beyonder123]

There's no way to be certain but imo they look legit. They could also just be really good forgeries. Not sure why someone would have Stan sign that book, but he was also known to sign pretty much anything that was put in front of him.

[revat]

Assuming you’re not a pro, your guess is as good as any of ours.  There’s literally tens of thousands of Cgc SS signatures for both people available on the internet to compare the examples against.

or for something like $30-$40 there are grading companies (not Cgc) that will authenticate signatures.  

[D2]

So, I’ll second peoples’ opinions on here. 
 

Let’s start with Todd. 
I always state this at the beginning, that Todd is left handed so he has odd pauses in his signature that are hard to replicate. 
 

First off his Ds look like there’s a pause. 
They are sharp and jagged which is unlike Todd’s signature.

His F has a wiggle. Also weird to see, but not unheard of. 
And the ANE combination also looks rehearsed. 
 

Unfortunately it looks like it could possibly be a very good forgery. Not a slam dunk fake, but… it has telltale signs. 

Stan is more difficult because his signatures really started failing as he got older. His youthful signatures are distinctively Stan Lee, but that goes out the window when dealing with signatures at the end of his tenure. 
Because Todd’s looks a bit off, it’s hard not to see Stan’s being off too. 
The E line (the last e, and the line across) looks poor. Stan did that part to perfection. This also looks hesitated. 
The line even has a character of its own in any year he signed, with a bit of a beautiful curvature to it. This does not. 
 

The fact that these signatures are also on a $5 book makes me think someone, went out of their way to practice, quite well, on seeing how close they can get. And these look good, but they do look off. Both of them. And both of them together means that it’s likely fake. 

[PEiny]

Thanks for all your input.  I also looked at hundreds of different Stan and Todd signatures.  All of that, combined with a lot of what you said, made me feel extremely confident that these were not genuine signatures.

One thing I noticed in EVERY Todd McFarlane signature, is that he always starts his R from the very top of his A.  Literally every single signature I looked at was identical in that way, but not this one.  The connecting line from the A to R starts in the middle of the A, not the top.  Looks like a lot of overall hesitation in it as well that didn't look consistent with the other signatures I saw.  It's also not easy at all to find books he signed "Todd" instead of "T."

Stan's just seemed off to me right from the get.  For starters, the angle seems off to me.  Every signed book I looked at, which was literally hundreds from all different eras, was signed at a more upward angle.  Also I could not find a single signature where the last E in Lee is smaller than the first.  That seems like one tell-tale sign in his autos he always made that E bigger going into his underline back to the front.  Seems to be on the small side as well.  Overall just doesn't look like a confident signature, more like its drawn.

Also did some digging into his feedback as a buyer.  Found some very suspicious times of purchases from sellers that seem to have a large selection of duplicate comics.  A lot of which had obscure copies of Spawn, Spider-Man, and other Marvel comics. Of course none of them had Spawn #8 (probably because he bought them all to practice on haha)  Also looking at his feedback as a seller, he's sold no less than 50 signed Stan Lee comics (none of which are CGC) in the last 6 months.  Which also happens to be the same timeframe as his feedback as a buyer from the duplicate comic sales.

I ended up asking to cancel the order, and voiced a few of my concerns over the signatures.  He was not happy to hear any of that, and proceeded to tell me he's been on the auction site for 17 years and has never had negative feedback or questions about his signatures.  At first said normally he would cancel the order, but because of my baseless accusations, he was leaning towards not.  We went back and forth a couple times, and I ended up telling him I was tired of arguing about it.  I was going to chalk it up as an L, learned my lesson, and move on.  But that I was going to be leaving a detailed feedback.  That may have scared him off, because he relisted the comic and told me he would be cancelling the order on Monday.

End of the day, I take the fault.  All the research I did after I bought the comic should have been done beforehand.

Edited January 2, 2023 by PEiny

[Grendel72]

If you want guarantees, then no amount of research is going to be enough to assure you those are legit sigs unless you're a handwriting expert. Even if you are, most wouldnt touch it as collectors are a skeptical bunch. The only way is to purchase them witnessed with a COA or slabbed by a reputable company as a SS,  especially if u want to have it for investment purposes. If its for personal consumption and the price is right, then why not ? There's definitely a premium to be paid for witnessed sigs. 

[seredynskib]

These signatures are fake.

At the peak of my collection, I had over 100 Stan Lee autographs (while meeting him in person) and several Todd McFarlane autographs and can spot a bad forgery. This person clearly knows what both autographs are "supposed to look like," but as pointed out in the posts above, did not pay attention to the small details. Another common theme for forged autographs is that the scam artist almost always defaces an inexpensive book.

If you stick with CGC yellow label books, you will never need to question the authenticity of the autograph.

Edited January 4, 2023 by seredynskib

[ShaggyB]

Did stan sign stuff he wasnt a part of?

[ShaggyB]

On 12/29/2022 at 11:29 PM, D2 said:

So, I’ll second peoples’ opinions on here. 
 

Let’s start with Todd. 
I always state this at the beginning, that Todd is left handed so he has odd pauses in his signature that are hard to replicate. 
 

First off his Ds look like there’s a pause. 
They are sharp and jagged which is unlike Todd’s signature.

His F has a wiggle. Also weird to see, but not unheard of. 
And the ANE combination also looks rehearsed. 
 

Unfortunately it looks like it could possibly be a very good forgery. Not a slam dunk fake, but… it has telltale signs. 

Stan is more difficult because his signatures really started failing as he got older. His youthful signatures are distinctively Stan Lee, but that goes out the window when dealing with signatures at the end of his tenure. 
Because Todd’s looks a bit off, it’s hard not to see Stan’s being off too. 
The E line (the last e, and the line across) looks poor. Stan did that part to perfection. This also looks hesitated. 
The line even has a character of its own in any year he signed, with a bit of a beautiful curvature to it. This does not. 
 

The fact that these signatures are also on a $5 book makes me think someone, went out of their way to practice, quite well, on seeing how close they can get. And these look good, but they do look off. Both of them. And both of them together means that it’s likely fake. 

This guy has it right.... stan's sig gets rougher as he aged. Go with cgc for that reason. Mine below barely readable would likely never pass authentication, but it was whitnessed

 

As to todd.... here are a few to view. Your "D"s look wrong.

 

And in your McFarlane, the "ar" isnt quite right. Typically when he does the full name he doesnt rush the last name. Yours appears to be trying for the "ar" overlap that is common on tbag signatures, its still slightly off. See below.

Edited January 5, 2023 by ShaggyB

[Kevin76]

The T has a slight curve on the real one, the Spawn 8 signature has the T straight across,  looks like both signatures on the Spawn 8 looks fake  

[postersandstuff]

Beware of Piece of the Past/Hollywood Show , POTP has sold fake Stan Lee's & HS was caught selling fake sgd SL capt A funko last yr

POTP currently has a SL drawing on liveauctioneers , imo its not real (also a fake Rigg , ive met her in 2011 so I know what it looks like) & has a nationwide ring of 9 (!) dealers aid him sell fakes , among them jackmsell (sold fake 007 sigs for over 5k last month : post death Robert Shaw - he never finished Avalanche Express...another thing the sharpie sig has not faded in 45 yrs ?? , dubious Connery & Dalton has for yrs refused to sign 007 items)  and colbystreetartandantiques 

"hand writing expert" , POTP also claims to be a forensic certified expert but then again hes a full blown a-hole conman

Edited January 12, 2023 by postersandstuff

[postersandstuff]

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/144155980_stan-lee-rare-spiderman-sketch

Is this even real , at all ?