Dear John
You and I have never met - at least to my knowledge we haven't.
However, in the year I have been involved seriously in the movie
poster business as a collector or as the owner of MoviePosterBid.com,
I have always heard great things about your company.
At some point your talent was exampled to me when I bought a
collection of magic posters with 2 of the classic Blackstone posters
of the 1920s, and on the back was Poster Mountain's label. The
quality of the restoration was of such quality that unless I got
within just a few inches of the poster, it could not be seen even by
my own eyes. That is not an easy feat! Before I got serious in movie
posters, I was one of the top dealers in the world of Original Comic
Art, Pulp and Paperback cover illustration, and I have some art
training as well. So when I say that as an artist you are a very
talented restorer, I think you know that I really mean it.
Now, for the last few months there has been a total scandal in this
hobby of ours. It is a scandal of epic proportions as epics may be
measured in this small hobby of maybe 10,000 serious collectors and
even still we are most likely far from discovering the true size and
scope of this scandal for forgery and fraud are crimes that go on
undetected for years, and there is a much longer period entailing the
full investigative work that needs to be done to find the last one of
these forgeries extant.
Still unwinding down the road to justice and discovery we get new
information almost every day concerning the alleged mastermind of the
scheme Kerry Haggard and his alleged cohort Jaime Mendez and now
added to this is the situation we have before us.
About two weeks ago Profiles in History released their latest auction
catalog and right there in bold colors on the front of their catalog
was one of the prize jewels of movie poster collecting. The web style
Dracula one sheet from 1931. An incredible poster if ever there was
one to own and worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Profiles was
proud of this consignment as it is a true coup to sell such an item
due to it's rarity for as we all know, or at least we should know,
that the only two copies of this poster previously known to exist
were in the collections of longtime collectors Ron Borst and Todd Feiertag.
It wasn't more than hours after receiving the catalog however that
fans across the globe began to question the authenticity of this
poster.. and we were only looking at photographs.
The first problem that was noticed with the poster was that the
Morgan Litho plate numbers were wrong. They were actually the numbers
for the "cartoon-style" Dracula one sheet.
Within 2 days time a fan and the United Kingdom and myself began
analyzing the image against the known copies - by photograph of
course, and not to say that Todd Feiertag, Sean Linkenback and others
were not also examining the pictures - but Richard Evans, the UK
collector made the first points that there were issues with the text
and lettering. Then I noted that the image was not as some had
suspected taken from the pressbook cover - incorrect: The pressbook
is a photographic image - or from Ron Borst's book - incorrect: there
is not enough detail to have done such a fine reproduction.
Again Richard Evans was the first to find a comparable image on the
website art.com where you can buy a full size reproduction for
$329.00. Then I realized that a company here in Las Vegas also makes
a full size reproduction right here in Las Vegas not 2 miles from my office.
S2 Art Gallery, run by longtime gallery owner Jack Solomon is well
known for publishing a very high quality chromo lithography art print
along with 99 other American Film Institute 100 poster series images
including the Mummy, Frankenstein, the Invisible Man and even
non-horror classics like Lolita, Casablanca and Wizard of Oz.
Everyone here is familiar with them, or should be, as I think we have
seen the King Kong 3-sheet posters that they have in Shopping Mall
Galleries for something like $1000 and high quality they are.
The images for these posters were supplied by the AFI to S2 Art and
it is the AFI that had an artist by the name of D. Copson who
carefully worked on the supplied image that he was given to create
clean images for reproduction. His name appears on an S2 Art Print at
the bottom right hand image along with a small S2 art imprint
I have an image gallery at this link for everyone who wants to look
of photographs I took when I went to the gallery
http://www.comic-art.com/s2art_dracula/
S2 Art Gallery owner Jack Solomon was gracious enough to let me
examine a Dracula Lithograph they produce and take pictures of the
presses they use.
Jack and I also discussed that the type on the AFI Litho Series
posters, which are the same images licensed to Art.com, were reset
when necessary to clean up much hand written original type, one
reason being that the artist wanted to make sure that there was a
difference between the original posters and these lithographed art
prints so that they cannot be sold as forgeries. The press operator
who I also spoke to mentioned that many times they see some of their
art print from other areas being sold as original prints by scammers on eBay.
So back to the poster that Profiles was going to auction next week.
Joe Maddalena contracted you as a noted expert to determine whether
or not the poster in question was authentic prior to it being put
into their catalog for the October 9th, 2009 auction.
It was your job to therefore conclude with no doubt what-so-ever the
origins of this poster. Of course Joe needs the authentication for
the reasons all stated above, re: unknown copy of a rare poster,
current forgery scandal. So you went to work with your microscope and
you concluded this to be a "100%, I'll stake my life on it authentic poster"
Hey John.. Bang up job
Where did you go wrong John? We as collectors and dealers were able
to discover the fraud from photographs, how could you who had the
poster in your hands not be able to discover such a fraud?
So now, Joe starts getting all of these calls that the poster is a
forgery and where are you?? You're on vacation. Is it okay to be on
vacation.. Of course, I can't fault you for that. However once this
issue comes up and Joe's reputation is on the line, don't you think
that you owe it to Joe to get back here and help deal with the issue?
Or do you really think it's responsible considering Joe's position to
be sipping Pina Coladas on the beach? I think most of us believe you
should have been on the first plane to Joe's aid to end the
speculation as soon as possible to save Joe's embarrassment.
So now that we have indeed determined that it is a fraud through
examination and comparison to Ron Borst's copy of the poster we know
that of all people in this, the worst job of it was done by you.. Did
it ever occur to you that you might have called Ron Borst during your
authentication? Even more, what in the world makes you think that
without any education in forensics, that you were even the right man
for the job?
So here we are at this moment in time, John Davis has to come out and
explain what has happened. What does John do? He tries to do a
hatchet job on Diane Jeffrey, who had early this year linenbacked the
poster, and who immediately upon hearing about the poster in the
auction email queried Joe Maddalena about the poster. Your
explanation that appears at
http://www.postermountain.com/form/index.php/posters/formatted/9 as a
matter of fact seems to indicate that you think Diane had a nefarious
position in the creation of a fraud.
Shame on you John. At the time that Diane Jeffrey linenbacked this
poster, the forgery fraud had yet to be discovered for certain and
Diane was doing what any linenbacker and restorer is supposed to do..
linenback and restore a poster for a client. You aren't going to tell
me you never linenbacked a Portal Reproduction for someone or an art
print that was not authentic are you??. Diane did exactly what her
job is. She even questioned the client as to if the poster was a
reproduction because she felt the paper was wrong, but the client
said it was just a poster he wanted to display and would she please
restore it and when he indicated that he wanted the original Morgan
Litho numbers restored - but he supplied incorrect ones - she added
them as requested knowing that such an obvious mistake would be
noticed. But by you, it may as well have been in invisible ink,
because you didn't see it.
Later when it was discovered the numbers were wrong it is my
understanding that you added the correct info. Did you also repaint
the Morgan Litho symbol on the poster? Why do you not indicate this
in your blog?
I spoke to Joe today and he told me that you were going to write a
mea culpa tomorrow. was something wrong with today? Did you not have
plenty of time to contemplate what your apologies would be while you
were on vacation in the sun? Or even just on the trip back home from
Ron Borst's home?? Is Joe Maddalena supposed to keep taking the heat
because you want another 24 hours while his reputation is in tatters
on this issue??
Well this is what I have to say John....... Man Up !!
Get yourself out here front and center and admit that you screwed up
- royally.
Let us see you take the blame all on your own without trying to throw
someone else under the buss so your back doesn't get tire marks
You have not just embarrassed Joe, you've embarrassed yourself and
you have thrown into doubt every last authentication that you have
previously done for people who got stuck with these forgeries. I hope
you plan on issuing refunds to every person who paid you for this
service because most certainly your Certificates of Authenticity have
become useless pieces of paper.
But there is something more.. When I spoke to Joe, he informed me
that the Dracula window card they had sold last may had been given to
you to "re-restore" before they put it in their auction. This window
card was one of the pieces that top collector and my very good friend
Steven Fishler helped to discover was a fraud, but you had the item,
apparently stripped the back for re-mounting and did not see that it
was a fraud?? yet you want to throw Diane under the bus because she
backed the S2 litho??
You also examined the Frankenstein title card Profiles sold in the
same auction as the Dracula window card and pronounced it as real..
John as a restorer, you are the tops. As an authenticator, you're
Charlie Brown and seeing as your reputation is now going to be judged
by your Charlie Brown alter-ego, I'd say you have a lot of work ahead
of you trying to repair that.
The first thing that I would do.. I'd get out there to help Joe be
released from his embarrassment and Man-Up and take my beating. Then
I would refund to every person whom I have screwed with my lack of
ability in forensics all money that I have been paid and then I would
give them all indovidually an on my knees apology. Forget the rest of
us, we're just the hobby itself. But to the hobby itself, you owe the
biggest apologies of all.
Richard Halegua
MoviePosterBid.com
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