A quick word about 'fake' autographed items.

Expanded from the introduction of issue #162...

It seems these have always been around, but it appears there are more and more popping up, even at 'respectable' auction sites. The prices are eye watering, which makes it even worse if you buy something that's basically counterfeit. Recently there have been three items on Ebay. Two are real, one I believe is not, and it's a bad fake at that. Of the three recently one is in America and priced at a ludicrous £9,250. Seriously?? This is being sold by someone who says he saw them twice. His information is all correct and every one the signatures (from Carnegie Hall, 1971, according to the seller) are as they should be. The second is being sold by a dealer, apparently signed at Croydon, 1970. This time £2850, ouch!. Again it looks perfectly legit. All the signatures are looking like they should. So far so good if you have money to burn. I wouldn't pay these prices myself. These are on Ebay at the time of writing.

Finally a sleeve with just Kossoff's name 'applied' is being sold by an optimistic Ebay punter in Germany for £2,100. He's been told by a few people that it's very likely phoney, but hasn't taken it down. The seller appears to be saying it was signed personally, in Minden, Germany on January 15th, 1972. This is written under the signature on the sleeve. Not signed by Paul Kossoff it wasn't. Not unless the punter, or Kossoff, had a time machine!

Firstly it's on a UK cover printed for a pressing from 1976 or even later. Paul was likely dead when this album pressing came out, or at best he was in America with BSC. He certainly wasn't in Germany. The 'Sunset' label came into play towards the end of 1975. The first three albums on it, I believe, were by Milk 'N' Cookies, Chieftains and Jim Capaldi (in December). Also note the cover says 'St Peter's Square', a building that Island didn't even own until 1973, and they started printing this address instead of Basing Street on the covers around mid-1976 after they'd moved in, settled, and built a studio in the basement ('The Fallout Shelter', where I spent many a happy day). Prior to this the LPs all had the Basing Street address on the back, before they removed that in 1974-5 and replaced it with 'Manufactured and distributed by EMI Records Ltd'. This was used for a while prior to adding the St Peter's Square address. The first album release I have with 'St Peter's Square' printed on the back sleeve is actually 'Free & Easy, Rough & Ready', released in November / December 1976, itself on the same LP vinyl centre label ('sunset'), and with the same text on the back sleeve. Oops. Not 1972 then... Or even close...

Secondly here, and just as important, it's absolutely nothing like Kossoff's actual signature, which was pretty consistent throughout his life. I have signed items from early on with Free to copies of 'Band Plays On' by Back Street Crawler signed by him. His signature is always small and tight, almost compressed. The letters squeezed tightly together. Some have a downwards line at the end of the last ' f ' (mostly earlier ones, but this comes and goes). Also the final line circles back and goes through both ' f ' letters. You'll see that clearly on all shown here, but one... The fake. 

You'll also notice whoever did this seemed to forget there is actually a double 's' in Kossoff. Doh!!! I've actually never seen anything as large and scrawled as this by Kossoff either, and the shapes of the letters are wrong. Andy Fraser did that big signature thing in the last couple of years. Horrible... But I've not seen Kossoff do that with anything I know to be genuinely signed by him. Also I don't think I've ever seen him sign the back of this cover. He usually signed near his image on the front sleeve of 'Fire and Water' from the copies I have, and others I have seen. This also applies to the collectors I know that have autographed copies of this LP. Which side it's on is actually a small point, the actually handwriting here is much more of a giveaway.

Finally, what would Kossoff have (allegedly) been doing in Minden, Germany on 15th January 1972? It's the weirdest of random dates. Free had just reformed and were trying to get him back into a condition where he could play at this time. He was in a dreadful physical state. They were trying out new songs with him for the impending tour, and were in and out of Basing Street in January 1972, where they did also do a bit of recording. They were not, to my knowledge, in Germany. In fact I don't think Kossoff was in Germany again after 1970 for any reason, personal or business! Free never went there to play again as far as I'm aware, and BSC certainly didn't go there either!

So as far as this final one goes I'd say it's NOT Paul Kossoff's signature and I wouldn't buy it at all, whatever the price. The sleeve is worthless and with the scrawl across it is actually devalued. It's now worth less than it would have been without the 'writing'!

Images of genuine autographs, Kossoff and FREE, and the 'dubious' one are featured here for your reference. Other genuine signatures have been used many times previously in the FAS magazines and you can also find two full sets in 'Heavy Load' on pages 100 and 101. As I've said, this isn't a one off. Recently one well known auction site was selling a signature I felt was bogus. I did tell them about my concerns, but they still sold it! So someone bought a fake, in my opinion. Do your research thoroughly before you contemplate purchasing anything like this.

As I've said before 'Buyer Beware'. These prices are just ridiculous anyway. I wouldn't pay anywhere NEAR that myself for a full set of FREE autographs, but if you did get tempted please look into things before you spend a lot of money on something that is quite simply counterfeit / bogus / FAKE. I did once see someone trying to sell a Kossoff signed copy of '2nd Street'. It made be laugh, but in a sad way, as Kossoff had been dead for a while before that LP even came out for the first time! If there's money involved, and it can be easily faked, someone will try to take advantage.

Finally, just to let you know I have issue #163 and it's pretty much ready to go. I'd like to put at least a couple of weeks between #162 and this, so it looks likely to go into the mail for subscribers sometime during the week of May 16th. First out will be the overseas magazines and then probably on the Weds the UK issues. So if your subscription ran out with #162 please renew quickly so you get #163 as soon as it's available. 

Weird text 'justification' here is down to 'Blogger' not me.  It simply will not let me correct it!