Sunday, July 20, 2014

Spotted: Another Prolific eBay Vendor Of Fake Cartoon Art

(Uhhh... yeah.)

Did Tony Greco move his Gallery on Baum to Minnesota? Ha ha, I don't think so, but the seller "timetreats" on eBay just may give Greco a run for his money for sending out into the world an extraordinary number of dodgy looking celebrity signatures and terrible drawings "by" famous animators.

The resemblance to the Gallery on Baum case is remarkable: modest fan drawings and autographs with no provenance. Each one is sold for cheap, but LOTS of them are sold. The drawings have an unmistakable "all drawn by the same person" look to them. The seller appears to have hard-to-believe numbers of drawings and autographs by certain people (like Grace Slick! So weird!).

And, of course, there's the quality. These are just absolutely laughable:

(I do not believe Friz Freleng drew this)

(Come on, now!)

These are even worse than Gallery on Baum's fakes, and that's saying something. And when I say "fakes" I mean "forgeries," blatantly manufactured with the intent to deceive. Is the seller the forger? Who knows? He/she certainly isn't a very good judge of quality, that's for sure.

I love the obvious defensiveness in the descriptions:

I sell no pre-printed items done by a Xerox machine, printing press, auto-pen, or some other robotic contraption; every item is absolutely self-evident that it was endorsed by human hands. The vast majority of the autographed material that I have listed for sale has been obtained through correspondence with the noted individual. However, some material is obtained through other sources, such as collections that I purchase. Items such as these usually carry no COAs. However, there are authentication resources available where you may acquire some acclaimed-wizards perspective on items. Fundamentally, I hold no degree doctorate in autograph authentication, so I wish to forgo the process myself. So, I have opted to sell these items under the "entertainment piece" criteria; just awesomely-cool-trinkets to adore. Hence the frugal price.

"I can't prove these are real. Can you prove they're fake?" Uh, yeah, by looking at them.


PhysioProffe said...

The Pink Panthers look like they were drawn by an untalented child.

samael7 said...

Dear LORD, these are atrocious. "Entertainment pieces?" Only if they are recycled, perhaps into papier-mâché and used to make a piñata.

Tones said...

"...every item is absolutely self-evident that it was endorsed by human hands"

Does not in any way imply the original artist's hands.