Autograph obsessive

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, 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

perfect condition. The lyrics were written in blue fountain-pen ink, with a few crossings-out, all in the King’s hand. His recognisable loopy signature appeared at the bottom.

I took all the Elvis stuff to a trade fair in New York and stormed it. The very first item I sold was the set of lyrics. An American dealer paid me $8,000 just 30 seconds after walking in through the door. Good; I could now pay off the last part of my grandfather’s loan.

I exhibited at another trade show in autographs – those lyrics you sold me.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘Well, yes. The problem is they’re fake.’ The dealer locked eyes with me.

My stomach descended to my feet. ‘Fake? How do you mean?’

‘They’re forged. I’ve looked into it with some other dealers. It seems there’s a forgery ring operating in Europe. Someone’s doing these Elvises really well. They bake them in the oven to make the paper look old and use other tricks too. But it’s all baloney. This Mrs Schneider – the woman Elvis was meant to have stayed with – she never existed.’

The refunds totalled £30,000. I felt humiliated. My authentication skills had let me down. It hadn’t been Elvis at all. It had been a greedy Austrian. Maybe I’d been greedy, too. I called to mind those times seasoned autograph-dealers had said to me, ‘If it seems too good to be true, then it’s probably not true.’

Red ink meant fake, with the neat, curly ‘Love and kisses, Marilyn Monroe’

Washington, DC. Again, I had a good selection of Elvis in tow, courtesy of my Swedish source. While I was setting up my stall, the American dealer I’d sold Elvis items to came over and shook my hand.

‘Adam, we have to talk about the Elvis Monica Lewinsky

When a colleague mentioned he’d be attending a book-signing by Monica Lewinsky, it piqued my interest. I remembered a signed card by Bill Clinton lurking somewhere in my cupboard. It was worth $200. What if I could get Lewinsky to sign the same card? That could be worth thousands.

I found the autograph, and to my delight Clinton’s signature was written quite far up on the card, which left a large space underneath it, just for Monica. I couldn’t resist the opportunity.

I told the expert I would meet him at Harrods. It was highly unlikely Lewinsky would agree to sign alongside the president’s signature, so I cunningly created a cardboard slip that completely covered it, leaving just a small white box. I made a large space above where I inserted a picture of Monica. So what it looked like was a photo of Lewinsky with a white blank space below, ready to be signed.

Not one of my finest moments.

Lewinsky entered, stage left, looking pretty and breezy. All eyes were on her.

A woman behind me tutted and muttered, ‘Look at that. Not a flicker of shame.’ Monica started signing books, smiling up at each person in turn. Her eyes were sparkly. I felt uneasy as I neared the front of the queue, the obligatory copy of Monica’s Story under my right arm, the ridiculous Lewinsky tribute under my left.

‘I’d really like you to sign here, if possible,’ I said to Monica, standing at her desk and pointing down to the white space I’d manufactured beneath her image.

She took in the weird object before her and narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Then she offered me a look of apology. ‘Sorry, but I’m really only able to sign the books,’ she said.

I nodded vociferously that I completely understood; understood her position entirely, understood she was too canny for a cheap trick like mine. I intuited that only one of us truly needed to feel ashamed at that moment, and it wasn’t her. I’d objectified her, commodified her – just as everyone else had.

Heading home with my signed book, I had a further realisation: this would probably be the last autograph I would ever ask for.

Two Hitlers and a Marilyn: An Autograph Hunter’s Escape from Suburbia by Adam Andrusier is out now (Headline, £16.99)