Too Sensible & Competent

[David Orsam]

Totally off-topic, but just to 'bump' the watch...

If Chris Jones ever rejoins the forum, I'd be curious to know his source for the following statement (p. 168) in his Maybrick A-Z.

"He [Albert Johnson] turned down an offer of $190,000 for the watch, which is hardly the act of a forger."

I've never heard of any offer approaching this amount. The figure $30-40K U.S. was tossed around once or twice, and supposedly Robbie Johnson settled for a quarter share at £15K. If we accept that, than the 'worth' of the watch to whoever came up with that figure would have been around £60K (Robbie received a quarter share). The exchange rate in 1995 was about 1.56 US dollars to the UK pound.

I'm not trying to nit-pick, but the source of this astounding offer could be relevant.

Amazingly, RJ, I think I know the answer to the source of the $190,000 and, equally amazingly, the real story appears to be the direct opposite of what is said by Chris Jones! It's dealt with in Shirley Harrison's 2003 book at page 33:

"Eventually Albert had agreed to a sale for $190,000."

This was to a Texan called Bob Davis. Albert HAD apparently turned down an earlier offer from the same man for $40,000 (Harrison, 2003, p.30). Shirley says that Albert was "not interested in the money" but then seems to contradict that statement a few pages later by telling us that he did accept the subsequent offer of $190,000.

Shirley tells us that the sale was not concluded due to interference by two "menacing" individuals to whom Robbie had sold his share in the watch who turned up at Albert's solicitor's office claiming their percentage of the £1 million which they had been promised the watch was worth!!!!!

It's a very curious state of affairs.

[rjpalmer]

Thanks, David. The plot thickens. Chris Jones obviously didn't simply pull the very specific figure of $190,000 out of his hat. It had to come from somewhere, and, as you note, it's the exact figure that Shirley Harrison quotes. So, yes, we are hearing two very different stories--diametrically opposed stories---about the same event and the important question is..why? Or rather, who? Who is responsible for the misinformation? I have heard good things about Chris Jones, so I am not pointing any blame in his direction, but considering that the A-Z features a pleasant photograph of Albert and Chris standing together with the 'Maybrick' watch, the reader is obviously left wondering whether it was Albert himself who had been telling people that he had turned down all offers, including one worth $190,000. I'd really like hear a clarification. It's important.

[David Orsam]

By the way RJ, are you writing to Anne or should I be doing that? For I see we have been advised as follows:

"I suppose you or David could also write to Anne on behalf of all the sensible people who think as you do, to let her know she is your prime suspect for having written the diary. I'm sure you could think of all sorts of questions to put to her, and best of all David could deliver his coup de grace by explaining how she and Mike slipped up with Little Red Diary and the One off Instance, proving the diary could not have been in her family since the 1940s because it was written over 11 days in April 1992. Then if Anne doesn't own up and say it's a fair cop, you can post her denial here so we can all pick the bones out of it, basic errors in English and all."

Mind you, when you think about it, perhaps the Great Diary Defender should be taking the lead and writing to Anne to let her know that, in her view, the Battlecrease evidence shows that she and her dying father both lied through their teeth, time and time again, when they said they had personally seen the Diary many years prior to March 1992 and that it had been in their family's continuous possession before being given to Tony Devereux in 1991. But, of course, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why Anne and her father both lied. It's because they thought an electrician had stolen the Diary and given it to her husband so that....er.....it was important to tell a convoluted lie about the Diary because... er..... actually, no that's not it, she told a lie because her husband was telling a lie in June 1994 about having forged it himself which means that Anne had to tell a lie of her own because, er......well because.....errrrr......I mean, it's obvious....er.....oh, hold on, I've got it, wasn't everyone thinking that Anne was definitely part of the forgery in July 1994?.....oh, no, no-one ever actually thought or said this at the time so that can't be it.....so, er.....well....aha! she wanted to help her good friend Paul Feldman....is that it? Yes, it's a totally valid reason to lie in such extraordinary fashion....errrrr.....ummmmm....anyway, I'm sure the Great Diary Defender has some perfectly good nonsense she could write about this in a very long forum post which no-one will ever read and perhaps she can set it all out in her letter to Anne to reassure her that, while she is accusing her and her dying father of being terrible bare-faced liars, those lies were entirely understandable and, indeed, completely normal ones which create no possible suspicion about Anne that she could have been involved in any way in a forgery effort with her lying husband.

[caz]

Wow, the Nonsense dial has been turned up to 11 today I see.

It's not a "worry" that Voller's letters to Nick Warren from February 1996 have not been quoted in full "for some reason". It would be utter madness if everyone posting in this forum had to transcribe an entire document, including irrelevant material, when they only want to quote a limited bit of it to make a specific point in an internet post.

When I posted the quote from Voller's letter I had absolutely no idea whether this correspondence was available to others, such as Keith Skinner and the World's Leading Expert (who already told us she was offered unpublished documents sourced from Melvin Harris but declined to accept them), or other researchers, nor whether it had been posted on this or other forums in the past which I had never seen. It was only from the subsequent moaning and whinging reaction that I realised that the Leading Expert does not have access to a copy of this letter. It's funny, though, that when I asked James Johnston to post the entire transcript of his interview with the Eddie Lyons, that same person defended his failure to do so!!! Keith Skinner didn't quote the entire Doreen Montgomery correspondence, he didn't include the irrelevant parts which is fine. And he knew that this correspondence had never been published before.

As for the phrase "at least some of the effects", it was me who posted it in the first place when quoting from Voller's letter!!! So how is it possible to say that I didn't want anyone to "spot the difference"? Surely it just demonstrates my integrity in quoting accurately and in full without omitting any relevant parts. I even discussed that phrase in a subsequent post.

My interpretation of what Voller was saying is that he was conceding that the use of a UV sunlamp would have fooled him, otherwise what was the point of his comment? He clearly wasn't saying that a UV sunlamp would ONLY produce some of the effects and would therefore not have been able to fool him, he was saying that a UV sunlamp would produce effects similar to an accelerated fading apparatus sufficient that he would have been fooled. In other words, the effects would be similar.

Even taken literally, a reproduction of "at least some of the effects" must mean that similar effects would have been produced, even if not all of the effects would have been reproduced. But we shouldn't be dealing with Voller's correspondence as if it is the Holy Bible, with each word taken 100% literally as if he could never lack clarity in his writing. We have to look at what Voller was CONVEYING and what he was conveying was that a UV sunlamp would produce similar effects to the apparatus he had previously been discussing.

I'll set out the full context of the relevant paragraph from Voller's letter separately but we find confirmation in what I am saying in what Voller told Shirley Harrison. In the context of "an accelerated fading apparatus or even a hand held sun ray lamp", he said, to use the full quote provided by Shirley:

'Besides, any exposure to U.V. radiation that was harsh enough to simulate a century's worth of natural fading would also have a savage bleaching effect on the paper. There was nothing about the appearance of the Diary, as I recall, to suggest this. It's hard to be dogmatic because the rate at which fading occurs is variable but....'. [The dots here are Shirley's]

So he must there have been saying that a UV sunlamp could SIMULATE the effects of an accelerated fading apparatus namely by SIMULATING a century's worth of natural fading.

As a result, he is surely there saying that the UV sunlamp WOULD produce similar results to an accelerated fading apparatus (which he has already admitted, or later admits, in his letter to Warren, could have fooled him) but he is now adding that it would also produce a bleaching effect on the paper (which he doesn't recall seeing but clearly hadn't actually examined the Diary to check for this effect). Well that's as may be but it's different to what he said in writing to Warren which I have quoted elsewhere. Why he is saying different things to Shirley as to Warren? It's a good question. Does it undermine his credibility?

And here's the thing. Shirley only quotes a little bit of what Voller said about the sunlamp. Where is the full quote? He clearly said more because the first word quoted is "Besides". And where is the complaining that Shirley hasn't quoted everything so that we can get a fair picture about what Voller actually said? Why the happiness to rely on only a snippet on this occasion? And on what date did Voller say what he said to Shirley? Was it before or after his letter to Warren? Was it spoken or in writing? There is no complaining, for some reason, about the lack of details provided by Shirley in her book. It's a worry.

Excuses and hypocrisy. That's all I see in the above lengthy attempt to explain why it's okay for David to paraphrase or quote a source incompletely when he finds himself in possession of diary-related material. But it was 'disgraceful' only a few months back when others had not yet published Mike's research notes in full or an entire interview transcript. It's also okay for David not to take someone's words literally, as if they could never lack clarity in their writing, but to put into his own words what they appear to be CONVEYING. But he won't allow others to do the same, as I did with John White, who had more of an excuse to lack clarity when recalling the day he first saw the scratches in the watch, and described it as all "stemming from" the Antiques Roadshow. That arguably stuck in his mind as a pivotal moment, but not necessarily because someone suddenly mentioned the tv show out of nowhere, as a pretext for getting Albert to bite.

I am happy to see parts of letters, actual quotes, paraphrasing of longer passages where appropriate and suggestions for what a source was CONVEYING. I am happy to wait for more material to enter the public domain, or for some of it never to do so. There are always reasons. Something is better than nothing. What I dislike is the hypocrisy, after all the criticism others have had, for what David is now giving us excuses for doing himself.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Now here is the full unexpurgated paragraph from Voller's letter of 13 Feb 1996 subject to one line at the bottom of the first page of the letter which is virtually cut off in the photocopy I have seen:

"I suppose that it is going too far to speculate that Barrett [here is cut off but he probably says something like: had access to an] accelerated fading apparatus (which is designed to produce an emission spectrum similar to that of the sun), but your remarks about the text having been actually written by some nameless confederate (I always thought that Anne Barrett was the favourite suspect) have given me food for thought. I wonder if he might have done more than just set pen to paper? I wonder if someone knew enough to realise that at least some of the effects of an accelerated fading apparatus could be duplicated by using no more than an ordinary sunlamp? There would presumably be no problem of access there."

There is nothing else in the letter relevant to this issue. There are three paragraphs in the letter. The previous paragraph discusses the possibility of fading being caused by the Diary having been photographed and/or photocopied. The subsequent, and final, paragraph discusses a point of naval history with Warren.

That's better. Now we can see more of the context. It seems clear Warren had given Voller the strong impression that Mike, having 'confessed', was definitely involved in a modern fake with this 'nameless confederate', who had actually composed the text. It's a great pity we don't have Warren's 'remarks' to Voller, but there is no suggestion he was merely giving him the benefit of a personal opinion. This does rather complicate matters if Voller was now having to justify and moderate his original opinions, not knowing if Warren had evidence against Mike and co, which would make it impossible for the writing to be 90+ years old. If Voller had previously been 'fed' the idea that Mike was a complete idiot, was he also 'fed' the idea by Warren that it was all over bar the shouting, so he now had some explaining to do?

Voller seems to be working on the mistaken assumption that it would have been Mike who 'set pen to paper', and now we know that it wasn't quite as simple as conceding that a sunlamp could have duplicated 'at least some of the effects' that could be produced by an accelerated fading apparatus, but a case of wondering 'if someone knew enough to realise' this. It's a really important point, isn't it? So my nagging wasn't all in vain.

If Mike or Anne sat there with their sunlamp to fool Voller, how did they know what to do and whether it would work? And why didn't Mike ever mention this, or even better - hand over the receipt for the sunlamp - when claiming the finished product was their own work?

My interpretation and summary of Voller was therefore entirely reasonable, proper and appropriate while the use of the word "Naughty" to describe it was wholly illegitimate.

No it wasn't. It hit home and forced David to give us more of Voller's own words on the subject, so we can better interpret them. I can see no good reason why we didn't get 'the full unexpurgated paragraph' in the first place.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The Hypocrisy dial is also turned up to the max today. Look at this from the person who claims that Voller's exact words need to be used when summarising his position:

"knowing what Warren was told by Voller in 1996 about the diary having been subjected to unknown sources of UV radiation for an unknown duration if it was a modern forgery."

But Voller didn’t tell Warren anything about the diary "having been subjected to unknown sources of UV radiation for an unknown duration if it was a modern forgery". He said that such a technique could have simulated the effects of natural sunlight and that the appearance of the Diary as he had viewed it could have been produced by such a technique. But what we now know is that he subsequently said that the test sample written in Diamine ink by Warren in January 1995 bears certain similarities to the Diary text, suggesting that, to the extent that Voller was suggesting that a modern forger would have needed to have used an accelerated fading apparatus to recreate the look of the Diary text, he was wrong. Warren did it just by writing out some words in Diamine manscript ink!!!!!

But we need to know that Warren was using the pre-1992 Diamine supplied by Voller for this test sample, and not just take his word for it. And 'certain similarities' are no good. If no sunlamp was needed after all, Warren's sample should have looked identical in colour and fading to the diary, if the same ink was used for both, and Voller should have been able to say that Warren's writing gave the same appearance of being 90+ years old!!!!!!!!!!!!

I concede that I'm not sure how much 'natural sunlight' the diary pages would have basked in if the thing was shoved under the floorboards soon after it was written, and only emerged in March 1992, but a modern forgery would be claiming Tony Devereux had it up until 1991, so who knows how many years of natural sunlight the forgers would have wanted the writing to reflect.

I have to wonder what Mike would have claimed about the diary's origins if Tony hadn't died. Did they have a story in mind when Tony, Mike and Anne were supposedly hatching their plans? If so, it must have been even worse than the 'dead pal' one.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Incidentally, going forward I will be placing some deliberate but random typographical errors into my posts for anyone bonkers enough to want to highlight them in bold as a substitute for the professional therapy which they would so badly need to attempt such a weird pastime. It's obviously mad but harmless so please do have fun with it!

That's a great way for David to hide any accidental mistakes in future! They will all be deliberate!! Yes, it's obviously mad but harmless, and as long as the two other people plus my cat who follow these threads carefully have read the above post, they won't think David is losing his touch, just his marbles.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Does anyone know what has happened to the person called Dr Alec Voller? He was once mentioned quite a lot on this forum but now seems to have been replaced by someone with no title called "Alec Voller" or sometimes just plain "Voller". How disrespectful. I seem to recall that a member of this forum once came in for strong criticism for referring to this particular doctor as plain "Voller" and I don't recall seeing any admission by the critic that a mistake was made in having assigned a doctorate to him. So I am worried for the welfare of Dr Alec Voller. Please let me know if you see him and let's hope the imposter "Voller" is arrested and thrown into prison.

No 'admission' because I simply haven't asked Robert Smith yet to comment on his references to Dr Voller in his book. If he was mistaken, I'll happily admit to not realising it.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

It may be a good idea not to believe everything you read on the internet, even if it happens to be written by someone known as the world's leading expert on the Diary. I'm thinking about this passage:

"Then, at the end of December 1994, according to an email I received from John Omlor, dated 13th February 2002, Robert Smith wrote to Mike, enclosing expense receipts to explain why there were no royalties owing on this occasion. Mike scrawled across one of them: "I don't give a dam [sic]". Five days later, on 5th January 1995, he swore the affidavit, supporting Melvin's uncannily accurate prophesy from exactly 4 weeks previously, by naming 'the three people involved in the forgery' - as himself, the wife who had abandoned him in the January and divorced him just a month ago, and his old mate Tony "dead men don't tell lies" Devereux."

Is there any basis in fact to this purported sequence of events?

I suppose I should have known better than to rely on John Omlor. It seems his information was only partly right.

Well I suggest it is unlikely that Robert Smith wrote to Mike Barrett at the end of December 1994 enclosing expense receipts to explain why there were no royalties owing. This is for two reasons. Firstly, because such correspondence was normally from Robert Smith to Rupert Crew Ltd/Doreen Montgomery as Mike's agent. Secondly, because Mike did write directly to Robert Smith on 19th December 1994 to complain about not having received £70,000 from New Line Cinema but Smith's response to this letter, addressed directly to Mike, was not written until 13 January 1995.

I am, however, in possession of a copy of an invoice dated 3 November 1993 from Smith Gryphon Publishers addressed to Shirley Harrison and Mike Barrett, care of Rupert Crew Ltd, which was the enclosure to a letter from Robert Smith to Doreen Montgomery dated 5 November 1993 on which Mike Barrett has scrawled "I Dont Give A DAM." (see below).

I'm really grateful to David for the correction and additional information. I have been able to add the bare details of the letter from Mike to Robert on 19th December 1994, and the date of Robert's reply, to my timeline and to amend the entry regarding Mike's scrawled note, and put it where it belongs, with my entries detailing the invoice for 3rd November 1993 and Robert's letter of 5th November 1993. It does appear that Mike's resentment over the whole royalties business had been building up ever since then, but he was obviously still complaining about his treatment just before Christmas 1994, which is the important point.

Before we get any moans of complaint about me only producing an extract from this invoice, I could reproduce the entire document but, as it contains details of payments to the following individuals: Anna Koren, Nick Eastaugh, Sue Iremonger, Keith Skinner and Albert Johnson, some of whom are still alive (one assumes, although not necessarily all showing signs of life), and might not appreciate the size of those payments being posted on the internet, I will refrain from doing so.

I know from my timeline who got what, and I doubt any of them would appreciate David's assumption here and his choice of words, to imply 'the size' of those payments would be in any way embarrassing to the individuals concerned, or to anyone else for that matter, if made public.

Now, the annotation is undated so I don't know when it was written on the invoice (nor when Mike received that invoice in the first place) but 5 November 1994 by my calculation was some 426 days prior to 5 January 1995 so I'm not sure if the chronology as set out above can really be said to be reliable nor whether there can really be said to be any connection between Mike's scrawl and his affidavit. But don't worry folks, if an error has been made, it will all happily turn out to be John Omlor's fault not the fault of the person who reproduced the error in this thread!

I expect it was also John Omlor's fault then, that David made the above error, in which he calculated that 'some 426 days' separated 5th January 1995 from 5th November 1994! If I hadn't mentioned the big O in the first place, David wouldn't have made much the same error as John did, over 1994 and 1993. Or was this one of David's deliberate but random mistakes, planted just for me to have some mad but harmless fun with? Not very sensible to do it with dates, I'd have thought, but then nobody picked him up about it in the ten days since he posted this, so I'm probably right about only two other people plus my cat following along.

Let's have a quick recap then:

Mike wrote directly to Robert Smith on 19th December 1994, to complain about not having received £70,000 from New Line Cinema. Sixteen days later, on 5th January 1995, he swore the affidavit, supporting Melvin's uncannily accurate prophesy from exactly 4 weeks previously, by naming 'the three people involved in the forgery' - as himself, the wife who had abandoned him in January 1994 and divorced him just a month ago, and his old mate Tony "dead men don't tell lies" Devereux.

'Tis enough, 'twill serve.

Incidentally, I see that by December 1994, Robert Smith's information was that Leeds had already tested Diamine supplied by Warren and concluded it wasn't the same as the diary ink, but this would have been purchased from the Bluecoat Art Shop following Mike's claim in the summer of 1994, and the shop was out of stock by April 1993, of the original Diamine Black Manuscript ink, which had ceased regular production in 1992. The shop had ordered twelve bottles of the new formula, which contained no iron, around July 1993.

It was only in 1995 that Voller made up some ink specially to his pre-1992 formula and supplied two bottles each to Warren and Shirley Harrison, but I'm not sure exactly when in 1995 that was.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Sixteen days later, on 5th January 1995, he swore the affidavit, supporting Melvin's uncannily accurate prophesy from exactly 4 weeks previously, by naming 'the three people involved in the forgery' - as himself, the wife who had abandoned him in January 1994 and divorced him just a month ago, and his old mate Tony "dead men don't tell lies" Devereux.

What happened to William Graham? This must be one of the rare posts that your co-author Keith Skinner doesn't agree with, since the last time he was here he insisted that William Graham must be included among Mike's co-conspirators. Mike, Anne, Tony, and Billy = 4. Sorry, Caz, your strange and pointless premise has been shot in the foot.

[rjpalmer]

But while you are here, Caz, can you point out the source for your oft stated claim that Albert Johnson turned down all offers for selling the "Maybrick" watch due to his great honesty? Considering that Chris Jones states the same thing in his "A-Z," I am right in assuming that you and Jones were working from the same source? Who was that source? And how do you explain the apparent contradiction of this claim with Shirley Harrison's statement (posted earlier) that Johnson actually accepted a very lucrative offer? Thanks. And now I will be as quiet as your cat.

[rjpalmer]

Oh, one other thing. I mean this seriously, Caz, it's not a joke. I'm a little concerned about these two knuckle-draggers that somehow ended up with Robbie Johnson's "share" of the watch. Harrison felt they were up to no good, and I suspect she is right. Is it really likely they actually paid Robbie for his share, or, due to his habits (you know what I mean, I won't spell it out) is it far more likely that Robbie promised them his share in exchange for money he owed them? And once they were turned away, how did they react? I can't imagine they would be pleased. Not to put too fine a point on it, was Johnson's subsequent accidental death in Italy competently investigated, or am I just reading too much Ken Bruen and Ian Rankin (and Paul Feldman)? Now, to rejoin the cat.

[David Orsam]

Q. I say, I say, I say, how does one tell when a Diary Defender is thoroughly rattled?

A. When they throw around meaningless claims of "Excuses and hypocrisy".

Let's recap on some facts. I quoted an extract from a letter by Voller which, for all I knew, was available to "the Diary team". It transpired that the Diary team hadn't seen it so I followed up by quoting the entire paragraph from the letter containing that extract, noting that the rest of the letter was irrelevant to the point in question.

Having already quoted Voller accurately, I summarised his view as being that the effects of an ordinary UV sunlamp would be similar to that of an accelerated fading apparatus. I have explained at length why this is an accurate summary of his view and it has not been challenged. It is clearly a correct summary of what Voller was saying in his letter.

So that really is that.

There is no hypocrisy whatsoever because, now knowing that the letter is not available, I have quoted the entire Voller paragraph for everyone to read and consider.

It is an entirely different situation from Mike Barrett's research notes, said on their face to have been compiled in August 1991, where it was essential that they were published at a time when it was being claimed that the Diary came out of Battlecrease in March 1992.

It's also an entirely different situation from John White, where a Diary Defender was trying to invent something not said by White and trying to change his meaning where he was clearly saying that a discussion about the watch had "stemmed" from the Antiques Roadshow (a quote incidentally that has never been provided in full by Shirley Harrison, as there are ellipses where we don't know precisely what White said, although I haven't read any complaint from the Diary Defender about that - hypocrisy alert!).

Where we most certainly do find hypocrisy is that the same person who defended James Johnston for not posting the entire transcript of his interview with Eddie Lyons, let alone the other electricians, is now moaning about me not posting something (I don’t actually know what, because everything relevant has been posted!!!!). Furthermore, I have complained time and time again about the 2004 note of Keith Skinner's interview with Colin Rhodes not being posted, despite snippets of information from it having been used in argument, and have heard only silence in response. Presumably the Diary Defenders have something to hide. They can't possibly give out information that would be helpful to the argument that the Diary is a modern forgery.

In addition, we were promised that the transcript of the Diary prepared by the Barretts would be made available but this promise has not been kept.

I, on the other hand, have been posting new information, with full quotes, on almost a daily basis. I haven't given any "excuses" at all for not posting anything!!! So that's complete nonsense. I've been constantly providing information for the benefit of everyone. I think that is what the Chief Diary Defender does not like. The grapes appear to be very sour in the mouth.

[David Orsam]

I see we have had a desperate and futile attempt to make it seem that the full paragraph from Voller's letter which I have reproduced changes Voller's meaning, thus supposedly creating a justification for the "nagging" request to see it.

It does no such thing. Voller is clearly saying that the effects of a UV sunlamp would be similar to the effects of an accelerated fading apparatus. His wondering whether a confederate of Barrett would have known this makes no difference whatsoever to his meaning.

Frankly, if this is the type of nonsense we are going to get when I post more information it's not worth the hassle of providing the full context.

The "nagging" to see the whole thing was pointless. It changes nothing. All it does is prove that I used the quote properly and with integrity in the first place. As Voller has confirmed, the supposed ageing of the Diary text which made him think the diary was 80-90 years old could have been done artificially. That's it. The case is made.

Whether the forgers, whoever they were, made use of a UV sunlamp is another matter but we really don't need to go into endless speculation about that because we now know that Diamine ink bronzes much faster than Voller realised and the bronzing he saw in 1995 could have been created naturally in a Diary written in 1992.

[David Orsam]

Oh boy, when it comes to hypocrisy we have seen a classic example in this thread today.

Apparently, when Robert Smith claims to have written a sample in pre-1992 Diamine ink, we can safely take his word for it. This is the case even when that bottle of ink has gone missing, only to be found in an attic 16 years later. When Nick Warren writes a contemporaneous sample with Diamiane ink, however, we suddenly "need to know" that it was pre-1992 Diamine ink!!! I mean, honestly, the total hypocrisy is stunning.

When Nick Warren wrote his sample, an image of which I've already posted on this forum (#4492 of the Incontrovertible thread), he stated explicitly that it was being written with pre-1992 ink. Thus. the sample reads: "I am writing these words in "Diary" ink, i.e. the original Diamine black MS recreated for us by Alec Voller". The sample is dated 26 January 1995 which can only have been shortly after Voller provided him the ink.

Now, really, is it seriously being suggested that Nick Warren, a surgeon and the editor of Ripperana, a totally respectable Ripperologist, was telling a lie, deliberately creating a fake sample in order to falsely try and prove the Diary genuine? I mean, the idea is utterly ridiculous. I appreciate we've already had a disgraceful attempt to smear him in this forum because he had a "clammy handshake" (!) and was supposedly thought to be "a twat" but this is really plunging the depths of awfulness.

As for the claim that Warren's sample should not have been similar but identical to the Diary, the world's leading expert seems to have forgotten that different paper will produce different results. Voller's words on this subject have already been quoted in the thread "Acquiring a 20th Century Word Processor" #74 when he speaks of:

"...the poor opacity and fading and bronzing that are apparent in your copy of Nick Warren's letter. These are aspects that can be drastically influenced by relatively small shifts in the conditions...One factor that can strongly affect both the initial result and the subsequent behavior of the ink , is the choice of paper and it may perhaps be that Nick's choice was not such as to bring out the best in the ink...I agree that the ink of Nick's letter has taken on an appearance similar to that of the Diary, as regards fading and bronzing..."

I now believe, incidentally, that this was written by Voller in a letter to Harris (not Birchwood) dated 19 May 2001.

In the case of the Diary paper it was very different to ordinary paper. As Melvin Harris once stated, Nick Warren's test letter was "written on hard-surfaced paper quite unlike the softish, thick paper" of the Diary. So that would explain why the two documents might not have been identical.

The fact of the matter is that Warren's Daimine ink letter sample should not have been similar to the Diary if the Diary wasn't written with Diamine ink, but somehow it was. Just fancy that!