An Ever Expanding, Evolving Table of Contents
This is your evolving Table of Contents. Check back for additional subjects, additional articles, and helpful tips.
1. The History of Collecting
- Autographs uniquely link people of the past to the present.
- Autograph Collecting in America a Brief History
- Treasures We Have Hunted
- From Pliny to Petrarch: A Short History of Collecting Autographs
2. Authentication: A Guide
- Certificates of “Authenticity”
- Steps in Autograph authentication: Apply the Burden of Proof, Ascertain Provenance
- Authentication: Check the Paper, Pen and Ink
- Autograph authentication: Assess Dissimilarities and Idiosyncrasies in the Writing
- Conduct a Forgery-Avoidance Inspection
- Autograph authentication: Check for Autopens and Computer-Generated Signatures
- Autograph authentication: Assess for Evidence of Secretaries or Stamps
- Autograph authentication: Assess for Evidence of Facsimile
- Autograph authentication: Consider Special Factors
- Avoid Things That Are Too Good to Be True
- Autograph authentication: Apply Your Common Sense
- Autograph authentication: Know the Identified Forgers
- Authentication: Beware Confusions in Identities
- Authentication: Know how people signed their names
- Authentication: The Elizabeth Claypoole Rule
- All the Presidents’ Pens
- Authenticity: Secretarials, Machines
- A Forgery Worthy of a Museum