My review: Defenders of the Earth (2024) new comic #1 ►
◄ Project Zebra: Peace on the shoreline / that could've been me
I don't really collect signed things these days, but Bat out of Hell II might be an exception if I ever see one at a good price. It was the first album I bought myself (on cassette off someone at school for a fiver IIRC) and I love a good bit of overblown rock opera, there isn't really a duff track on it, but particularly Everything Louder Than Everything Else.
It really boils down to: if something seems to be too good to be true, it probably is. Particularly if the item offered for sale is signed by a creator who's no longer with us and is priced to make people click buy-it-now without doing even a bit of basic research into typical prices or even what the signature usually looks like. In this case someone obviously agreed with me because the listing was removed unsold not long after, but eBay is littered with "signed" items that in the small print note they're a print of a genuine signature or items with or without some sort of COA that look suspicious.
The tell-tale signs on this that it probably isn't authentic are the ways that people start and end a signature. Even if there's some variation over time or depending how many things they're signing, someone will usually start and finish in the same position, so the flourish in the picture above starting at the bottom and making an up stroke is a strong hint to pay close attention. Everything else may become a squiggle, but focus on these.
In genuine signatures by Meat Loaf, and there are many readily available to google, he starts at the top of the M, makes a down stroke and goes back up. The flourish on the final f also is much less defined:
You can see this more easily in a felt tip signing on white card that also makes it clearer where the weight falls.
By this point the only relatively cheap genuine signed albums you're likely to come across are the later ones such as Hell in a Hand Basket. The most sought after is obviously the original Bat out of Hell, but its first sequel was huge and fetches similar prices.
I ain't in it for the glory of anything at all, it's just a fascinating thing to study.
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