Call me slow if you like but I have just "discovered" a french actress called Sophie Marceau of whom I have fallen deeply in love with (don't tell my wife this of course).

Anyway, in a stroke of genius I wondered if she ever had an auto card. I went onto the 'bay and sure enough she was a star in both JB's The World Is Not Enough and Mel Gibson's BraveHeart. So I looked at the signatures to find that a couple of them could have been written by two totally different people! Go onto the 'bay and search 'Sophie Marceau have a look at the various ways you can sign 'Sophie" (with a sharp top on the "S" or a very much rounded one.

Since all of these cards seem to be on company authorised signing stock I thought it a little bit more than strange. I could sign my name two hundred times and I bet you wouldn't pick up these kinds of variance. So what's going on here auto collectors??

I have two of her signed certified RA Bond cards, there is at least one other in Women of Bond that I don't have. The best one for me is the last one, which is a full bleed and was pack pulled. I don't know how many copies she signed, but I think they are all fairly limited.

Her signature is what I would call consistent in its sloppiness. The two I own are generally similar, but the first S seems to vary and the Marceau has letters that could just as well be n's or m's in the ceau part. There is a difference in certain letters, but not way off.

I don't know that anything is going on with her, except that she is a lazy signer. If any blank cards have gotten away, I'm not aware of it.

Other than that, if the card looks to be genuine you have to trust that the signature is too.

I think one of my favourite Bond girls is getting a bum rap here!

btlfannz - Where have you been man? Only regarded as one of the very best Bond girls ever, and the first female Bond villian no less!
In real life more often than not there is lots of variation in people's signatures. I for example have 3 different ways of signing the first letter of my first name, all dependent upon space and mood!
I really wouldn't worry about authenticity of Marceau's signature. Apart from the slightly different 'S', which for the most part, display similar loops, from card to card the rest of her signature is nearly identical in penmanship. It is a very 'unique' looking autograph and all of her RA Bond cards are clearly done by the same hand.

For a more concerning card, taker he co-star Denise Richards Bond auto from The World Is Not Enough and compare it to her auto from RA's Bond series and I'd be very hesitant to say the same person signed these:



Raven - I think to call Marceau's autograph sloppy is somewhat harsh. She is one of very few signers that goes to great lengths to sign every letter of her name. You should see some of her in-person autograpghs - they are truly shocking. She clearly puts effort into her paid gig with Rittenhouse and her 40th and Women of Bond cards from 2004 are, for the most part very nice clear signatures. That said, I would concede that her full-bleed ones from last year are, for lack of a better word, 'sloppier' than her previous efforts but she's still making the effort to sign her full name. I would never call her a lazy signer.

Below are all examples. I have noticed her 40th signatures nearly all look identical (so I would guess she signed this style first) and the WOB cards are the ones that usually display the most variance in her 'S' and 'o' in 'Sophie'. Her full bleed autos are much looser in general with the 'au' in Marceu' blending more than it used to:





I actually like the full bleed card the least because I've never really liked that publicity still. Given what that card goes for I can't bring myself to pay for it.
Her first cards were each 'Limited'(300-500) and her newest was 'Extremely Limited' (less than 200). I remember when her first auto were about £30 a pop I even managed to pick up a second of her WOB card for £14.99 at a show in the UK - but those days are long gone and people started paying a small fortune for her not-as-rare-as-you-might think cards a few years back.

quote:

Originally posted by X:
Raven - I think to call Marceau's autograph sloppy is somewhat harsh. She is one of very few signers that goes to great lengths to sign every letter of her name. You should see some of her in-person autograpghs - they are truly shocking. She clearly puts effort into her paid gig with Rittenhouse and her 40th and Women of Bond cards from 2004 are, for the most part very nice clear signatures. That said, I would concede that her full-bleed ones from last year are, for lack of a better word, 'sloppier' than her previous efforts but she's still making the effort to sign her full name. I would never call her a lazy signer.

Below are all examples. I have noticed her 40th signatures nearly all look identical (so I would guess she signed this style first) and the WOB cards are the ones that usually display the most variance in her 'S' and 'o' in 'Sophie'. Her full bleed autos are much looser in general with the 'au' in Marceu' blending more than it used to:





I actually like the full bleed card the least because I've never really liked that publicity still. Given what that card goes for I can't bring myself to pay for it.

X - Thanks for those great snaps, they prove my point exactly.

There was no negative meaning in my calling her signature consistently sloppy. It is, there it is, and that's how she signs her money signature. I believe you when you say her in-persons are much worse.

As for my characterization of a lazy signer, take a look at the middle Woman of Bond card. It looks like she rolled out of bed to sign it. And the full bleed looks like she forgot how to spell Sophie. So it is not harsh at all and I stand by my assessment.

I have a thing about the full bleeds, I always prefer them to the 40th style. I would pick that card here over the others because it has such a larger close up, but RA could have chosen a little less tight shot and gotten a bit more of the shoulders in it. Still its not a floating head, so it could be worse.

But at least we answered the question about her signature variations, which are really not that bad at all. Also don't forget that these cards are signed a couple of years apart, so people do make little changes over time and it also depends on the mood they are in while signing.

As for that Denise Richards, to just compare the cards scanned I would have to lean to it being two different signers also. Even given that the two writing instruments used leave a broader and thinner stroke, the letter formations look totally different. It wouldn't be the first time that a certified autograph card was signed by a ghost, but I don't know if that's what happened here. The autographs just don't compare well for whatever reason.

As above I'd call the full bleeds sloppier examples, but you CAN still see all letters as with her earlier cards, and I see nothing unpleasant about her other signatures, even if it isn't the best looking autograph I've ever seen. I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

If you want to see signature deterioration (or laziness!) over time, I'm sad to say Famke Janssen is a classic example.

With Richards, there are some similarities between the signatures but they pale in comparison to the differences.

The full bleed auto was signed years after the other 2 so her sig could have changed.