Autograph-dealer Adam Andrusier tracked down some of the most valuable signatures on earth – and a lot of fakes
Confessions of a celebrity addict
Marilyn Monroe I answered my office phone to the sound of gargling. ‘Catarrh,’ explained a small voice. ‘This is Ray from the postcard fair. Friend of your dad’s.’ I remembered him now from my teenage years: a short dealer with a white mullet. He fished around inside cardboard boxes to retrieve his wares – old theatre programmes, posters, somebody’s wartime schoolbooks – before spreading them out in a six-inch wedge across his stall. ‘I’ve got an autograph book with Marilyn Monroe in. Thought you might be interested.’ Interested? Monroe was on every autograph-collector’s want list. ‘But has she signed in red ink?’ Red ink meant fake. You usually saw it on photos; the neat, curly hand – ‘Love and kisses, Marilyn Monroe’. The real thing was another story: an intelligent, 28 The Oldie August 2021
illegible scrawl, written at breakneck speed, the pen changing direction at least twice. ‘Nah, don’t think it’s red. Hang on, I’ll have a look. Soon tell you.’ I waited. ‘Here we go,’ said Ray. ‘It’s in black.’ ‘Right – well, that’s good news. And how much were you hoping to sell it for?’ An almighty exhalation of air. ‘Come see it, then. I’d have thought it’s worth a couple hundred at least,’ suggested Ray. Not bad. Her signatures were worth a thousand. At Ray’s Penge house, a 1950s autograph album sat on the table beside an ornate antique tea set. I flicked past a couple of Adam Faiths, a Tommy Trinder, a Dickie Henderson – none of them worth a thing. I flicked and flicked until I got to the page in question. In sloppy black ballpoint pen,
it said, ‘TO JACKIE, YOUR’S SINCERLEY, MARLYIN MONROE’. Ray’s handiwork? I couldn’t be sure, but I had my suspicions. ‘No good?’ asked Ray, smiling coyly at the expression on my face. ‘Looks nothing like her autograph,’ I grumbled. ‘Her name isn’t even spelt correctly.’ ‘Aw, sorry,’ said Ray. ‘Thought it was the real thing.’
Princess Diana After the tragic death of the Princess of Wales in 1997, the phone rang off the hook with requests. It was Diana the Americans wanted now, not Marilyn. I’d had a phone call from one of Diana’s old chauffeurs. He had a signed Christmas card he’d consider selling for £1,000. The deal was done. I sold it for £3,000; worth just £300 days earlier.
Elvis Presley I bought a signed photo of Elvis Presley on eBay from a Swedish guy – very reasonable. He had a trove of other signed items, all bought from the same woman in Germany, a Mrs Schneider. Elvis had stayed at this woman’s house during his time in the army, and they’d become lifelong friends. The provenance was rock solid. One of the items on offer was a page of handwritten lyrics for a song never recorded called I’ll Remember. £2,000. I bought it, plus a dozen other items, all reasonably priced. They arrived in
