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What's a scribbled signature worth? spectator.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from spectator.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The real McCoy: Marilyn Monroe in 1954 Credit: Getty Images Along with schools not bothering with spelling and grammar (elitist, see), universities becoming “emotional harm avoidance” drop-in centres, and the replacement of public intellectuals like Isaiah Berlin with fashion “influencers” named Susie Lau, another sign that we live in a crude post-literacy era is the disappearance of the autograph hunter. It’s all “selfies” now – a pretend intimate moment, lasting a nanosecond, captured on a mobile phone and instantly disseminated on social media. As Adam Andrusier explains, in the old days, when a celebrity put pen to paper, “there had to be tiny molecules of them lurking”. And once they’d croaked, “that a dead person had once been alive, here was the proof” – a genuine inky squiggle. When Miles Davis died, the value of his autograph doubled; Audrey Hepburn’s quadrupled. Princess Diana’s Christmas cards, priced at £300, were worth £3, ....
by Adam Andrusier (Headline £16.99, 320 pp) Did you ever practise your signature when you were a child? Just in case on the off-chance that you became famous? Of course you did. Everyone does. Adam Andrusier probably didn’t, because he was too busy acquiring other people’s signatures. Collecting autographs is one of those hobbies that, if not kept in check, can become an obsession. You’ll do pretty much anything for a Kirk Douglas. Andrusier started small but the bug got him, and now, in his mid-40s, he is a dealer in rare, valuable autographs. He probably has more Kirk Douglases than you could shake a stick at. ....
Book review: Memoir of a driven autograph hunter taipeitimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from taipeitimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.