One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

So we have a man who is a published journalist and a proven bullshiter. The smart money is on Mike having fabricated the diary.

Please don't tell me you have bet money on this, John.

Nooooooo!

Love,

Caz
X

[John Wheat]

Please don't tell me you have bet money on this, John.

Nooooooo!

Love,

Caz
X

No I don't. Not that you've ever actually given a valid and provable reason as to why Mike couldn't have written the diary Caz.

[Hunter]

...I don't personally believe Anne had nothing to worry about when Mike came out with that particular claim, regardless of her own role in the affair. If he had needed her help to forge the diary two years earlier, and he was now beside himself with grief and rage because she had left him and taken their only child with her, surely she'd have feared it was only a matter of time before his 'unaided' claim was seriously challenged [on the grounds of general incredulity that he could have pulled it off all by himself] and he would then have to admit to having her help with the project.

Even if Anne had nothing to do with its creation, Mike's claim to have written the diary himself would have put her in a very awkward position if people who knew nothing then about his strange relationship with the truth simply accepted it at face value. She had not contradicted Mike's original claim to have got it from Devereux in 1991, so any other story coming out that was incompatible with this would leave her vulnerable unless she could think of some way to maintain Devereux's place in the story by supporting it, and to come over as more credible than Mike...

I mentioned this in Chris Jones' thread, but there was really no reason for her to maintain Devereux's place in the story at that point if Mike was going to unravel things. Up until that time she was not linked publicly to the origins of this photo album. She could have still been in the "Did you Nick it, Mike?" mode at that time and with no sweat off her brow.

In fact, a Battlecrease provenance - and she had to be aware of it - would have been more fortuitous for her and really put a stop to Mike's 'greatest hoaxer' story and prevent him from dragging her into a rapidly deteriorating situation. Instead, she doubles down with this inside the family story that drags her and her poor old Dad deeper into the abyss of this sham. This says a lot about what might have been at stake for her as well as the Battlecrease story itself.

[Iconoclast]

I mentioned this in Chris Jones' thread, but there was really no reason for her to maintain Devereux's place in the story at that point if Mike was going to unravel things. Up until that time she was not linked publicly to the origins of this photo album. She could have still been in the "Did you Nick it, Mike?" mode at that time and with no sweat off her brow.

In fact, a Battlecrease provenance - and she had to be aware of it - would have been more fortuitous for her and really put a stop to Mike's 'greatest hoaxer' story and prevent him from dragging her into a rapidly deteriorating situation. Instead, she doubles down with this inside the family story that drags her and her poor old Dad deeper into the abyss of this sham. This says a lot about what might have been at stake for her as well as the Battlecrease story itself.

Or she could have been simply telling the truth?

We have two truly improbably provenances, both of which entail an astonishig level of coincidence (if the journal were not authentic). Personally, I favour Anne's provenance, mainly because - if it were actually made up - it managed to embody not one but two rather unlikely coincidences (the Formby link and Florrie using the name Graham on her release from gaol).

It is a mark of this ridiculous pantomime that one of these coincidences has to have been one. But both of these provenances mere coincidence? I think not, and I favour the first one to emerge, and that Anne was simply telling the truth.

[David Orsam]

It is a mark of this ridiculous pantomime that one of these coincidences has to have been one. But both of these provenances mere coincidence?

Well if one can be - and you agree that one must be - then they both can be.

[Spider]

I find it interesting should the 'Diary' be a late forgery/hoax, that the originator of the alleged 'Maybrick Watch', (and the markings upon it being 'many tens of years old'), was, all those years earlier also throwing Maybrick's name in the frame. What a coincidence.

[StevenOwl]

I find it interesting should the 'Diary' be a late forgery/hoax, that the originator of the alleged 'Maybrick Watch', (and the markings upon it being 'many tens of years old'), was, all those years earlier also throwing Maybrick's name in the frame. What a coincidence.

I've been thinking about the watch again recently myself. I just can't understand why it gets swept under the carpet and Diary takes centre stage. I mean, it has a more reliable provenance, a more credible person 'brought it market', it has a Maybrick signature which at least appears to match JM's hand, and the scientific tests undertaken so far are less contradictory. If the Diary had never come to light and the watch was the first time Maybrick's name had been linked with the Ripper crimes I wonder where the Jim as Jack discussion would be now?

[Abby Normal]

I've been thinking about the watch again recently myself. I just can't understand why it gets swept under the carpet and Diary takes centre stage. I mean, it has a more reliable provenance, a more credible person 'brought it market', it has a Maybrick signature which at least appears to match JM's hand, and the scientific tests undertaken so far are less contradictory. If the Diary had never come to light and the watch was the first time Maybrick's name had been linked with the Ripper crimes I wonder where the Jim as Jack discussion would be now?

when did the watch first come to light and how?

[StevenOwl]

when did the watch first come to light and how?

From memory, it appeared soon after the story of the Diary broke in the press. As I understand it, Albert Johnson was showing a watch he'd bought around a year earlier to some work colleagues following a discussion they'd previously had about antiques. One of his colleagues noticed scratches on the watch which Albert hadn't noticed before. They examined the scratches further and could make out the name 'Maybrick'. One of AJ's colleagues had read the story about the Diary and said to Albert "I think you've got Jack the Ripper's watch". The rest, as they say, is history.

[Abby Normal]

From memory, it appeared soon after the story of the Diary broke in the press. As I understand it, Albert Johnson was showing a watch he'd bought around a year earlier to some work colleagues following a discussion they'd previously had about antiques. One of his colleagues noticed scratches on the watch which Albert hadn't noticed before. They examined the scratches further and could make out the name 'Maybrick'. One of AJ's colleagues had read the story about the Diary and said to Albert "I think you've got Jack the Ripper's watch". The rest, as they say, is history.

Thanks Owl
dosnt the timing-right after the diary/maybrick came to light-raise your suspicions?

whats to stop someone, inspired by the diary, to scratch his name and the other stuff (I believe is the initials of the victims?) on it?

also-you really think someone like maybrick would scratch his name on the watch? hes well off enough-could just have his name engraved.

[StevenOwl]

Thanks Owl
dosnt the timing-right after the diary/maybrick came to light-raise your suspicions?

whats to stop someone, inspired by the diary, to scratch his name and the other stuff (I believe is the initials of the victims?) on it?

also-you really think someone like maybrick would scratch his name on the watch? hes well off enough-could just have his name engraved.

Yes, it is suspicious, but tests from 2 labs concluded that the scratches had been made at least tens of years earlier. While one of the labs admitted that it wasn't impossible for someone to have artificially aged the scratches, it seems as though some serious specialist knowledge would be required to do so. And also, for what it's worth, everyone who met Albert Johnson in connection with the watch seem to agree that he was a genuine and trustworthy man. He paid for the scientific tests out of his own pocket and, I believe, turned down a considerable financial offer for the watch back in the mid-1990s.

As for what Maybrick would or wouldn't have done, I'm not really sure any of us are able to say with any degree of certainty.

[Sam Flynn]

whats to stop someone, inspired by the diary, to scratch his name and the other stuff (I believe is the initials of the victims?) on it?

What gets me is how these inscriptions weren't spotted sooner. Even though they're spidery and comparatively faint, they are nonetheless well-formed words and letters, and clearly not random scratches. Furthermore, the inscriptions are clustered around the hallmarks on the case, and hallmarks are one of the first things people take a really good look at when inspecting antiques. It goes with the territory.

[caz]

I mentioned this in Chris Jones' thread, but there was really no reason for her to maintain Devereux's place in the story at that point if Mike was going to unravel things. Up until that time she was not linked publicly to the origins of this photo album. She could have still been in the "Did you Nick it, Mike?" mode at that time and with no sweat off her brow.

Doesn't it rather depend on what exactly Mike might have gone on to 'unravel' next, Cris? If she knew he could reveal - with proof - that they had both knowingly played a part in passing off a very recently forged diary as Victorian, and that Devereux was dead months before Mike had even acquired the guardbook for it, what then? She'd have been stuffed whichever way she turned. Alternatively, if she knew he hadn't faked it, and she hadn't faked it, but knew Mike had only brought it home one day in March/April 1992, when Tony had been dead for months, she couldn't admit that either, having failed to contradict Mike's original 'dead pal' story. But in this case at least she'd have known Mike would never prove his forgery claims, and she could be reasonably confident that nobody was going to own up to it now - with proof - if it had been nicked.

In fact, a Battlecrease provenance - and she had to be aware of it - would have been more fortuitous for her and really put a stop to Mike's 'greatest hoaxer' story and prevent him from dragging her into a rapidly deteriorating situation.

I'm not sure what she'd have been aware of by July 1994, Cris. I guess she could have read about the floorboard rumours the previous year, and Feldy may well have told her much more recently about those scheming electricians, but don't forget that he had completely washed his hands of them by this time, so how would Anne have gone about supporting a Battlecrease provenance herself, and what good would it have done her? Her position had been that Mike had brought the diary home sometime in late Spring/early Summer 1991, saying he got it from Devereux. Why would she latch on to a Battlecrease provenance, which Feldy had investigated and discarded as a scam, whether she knew the diary was nicked, and not until March 1992, or had no real idea if or when it had come from the house at any time?

Instead, she doubles down with this inside the family story that drags her and her poor old Dad deeper into the abyss of this sham. This says a lot about what might have been at stake for her as well as the Battlecrease story itself.

I'm with you there, Cris. The one thing I can't believe is that she'd have thought she could ever get away with this if Mike, in blazingly angry 'confession' mode, could have produced proof that the guardbook had yet to be acquired and the diary handwritten into it, when it was supposed to have arrived back in Goldie Street, via Devereux and Mike, almost a year previously.

If Mike really had acquired the bloody thing from an auction at Outhwaite & Litherland at the end of March 1992, and Anne knew it, how in God's name could she have guessed that he - not to mention O&L themselves - would be utterly unable to produce a shred of evidence for it ever being there?

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thanks Owl
dosnt the timing-right after the diary/maybrick came to light-raise your suspicions?

whats to stop someone, inspired by the diary, to scratch his name and the other stuff (I believe is the initials of the victims?) on it?

also-you really think someone like maybrick would scratch his name on the watch? hes well off enough-could just have his name engraved.

I agree with your post Abby but the only point that I would make is that Maybrick would have been unlikely to have some jeweller engrave ‘I am Jack’ on his watch.

[caz]

Thanks Owl
dosnt the timing-right after the diary/maybrick came to light-raise your suspicions?

whats to stop someone, inspired by the diary, to scratch his name and the other stuff (I believe is the initials of the victims?) on it?

also-you really think someone like maybrick would scratch his name on the watch? hes well off enough-could just have his name engraved.

Hi Abby,

There's also the coincidence of the watch being put up for sale in Spring 1992, and sold to Albert Johnson in the July, just when the diary publishing deal was being negotiated. Neither Albert nor the jeweller could have been aware of the diary's existence at this time, yet both agreed that the scratches were not made after purchase.

Love,

Caz
X