One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

If I try to sell the Brooklyn Bridge and no one buys it, does that make me honest?

No it doesn't RJ, but if someone had offered you $40,000 for a watch you'd hoaxed, would you not take it?

It would put $40,000 into your checking account (see how I'm using the vernacular here?) and save you from ever having to try to sell it later.

Everyone's a winner (except whoever coughs up the $40,000). And yet typical working class scouser Albert Johnson said no.

It's enough to make you think Johnson thought the watch and its inscriptions could be genuine, though obviously the logical thing is to assume that Robbie discovered Albert's watch whilst rummaging around in his drawers (Albert reported that Robbie did not know about the watch), inscribed the facsimile of James Maybrick's signature (having read the article in April naming names around the scrapbook), got it pretty well spot on, then allowed his brother to think he'd discovered Jack the Ripper's watch for a huge pay day which his brother duly turned down.

I wonder how Robbie got Albert to look, though? Here's a thought: "Look Albert,being brothers and me having a crimnal record, I was looking through all of the drawers in your house to see what I could nick and I found this gold watch and opened it up and happened to notice that it had James Maybrick's signature in and "I am Jack". Now, ignoring the spineless, scurrilous act I've just confessed to, how about we sell it and **** wee Daisy's inheritance?".

Ike

[Iconoclast]

lol they sold London c bridge

Technically, they sold Tower Bridge which is what the idiot Texan thought they were buying. Tower Bridge, you'll recall, is the outstandingly interesting one which is very much still there. London Bridge, you may not know, looks very much like any British stone bridge straddling any source of water (that is, flat, small sides, hugely uninteresting, and never worth a large amount of money).

Caveat emptor, and all that. Mind you, the buyer probably didn't notice the difference before he was shot dead by a five year old with a legally-purchased Uzi 9mm which they decided to forego that day's Crackerjack for at the local 7-11.

Ike

[milchmanuk]

The Daily Sport?!

You really are Robin Asquith.

you should buy fury slippers when trolling especially with the paper trail your squads leaving behind lol

[milchmanuk]

i was at the Trafalgar tavern last night looking up at the river .i see the bridges still there.
Greenwich.London

[rjpalmer]

No it doesn't RJ, but if someone had offered you $40,000 for a watch you'd hoaxed, would you not take it?

It's a dumb question Ike, and very poorly formulated. For one thing, I don't think Albert hoaxed the watch (which you already know) so your question is irrelevant and isn't even made in good faith.

Instead, ask yourself why, if everything Albert was telling you was true, and the watch was bought as an investment for Little Daisey, why he didn't sell it Two Gun Tex and thus make this extremely generous profit for her?

Why?

Well, according to Shirley Harrison, the deal with Tex fell through when Albert discovered that his brother was selling "shares" in the watch behind his back, after falsely telling investors that the watch had been appraised at a million pounds.

A startling development commonly known as fraud.

At this point, Albert got cold feet ... and the Texan got on a plane and left!

Yet Ero smirks and tell us the watch is 'still in the family' as if this is an indication of the honesty of the entire clan, even the wayward brother who somehow finagled his way into owning a share of a watch that he had no stake in.

And despite Ero's naiveté, Robbie Johnson netted ten thousand pounds for his 'share' and Albert made another two or three grand by selling the visual rights to Feldman, so the profit motive was there. The first time they showed the watch to Feldman, they brought along a solicitor!

After Albert's death, the family again tried to sell the watch, and it was featured on the UK antiques show, Four Rooms in 2013, but apparently no one wanted to buy the watch, dismissing it as a hoax, though one person evidently offered to buy it for the price of the scrap gold.

Maybe Milchmanuk can trace this show. There are some episodes of Four Rooms on YouTube, but I haven't seen the episode in question.

[rjpalmer]

This is no trivial point. It's not like the Public Record Office at Kew was in everyone's address book in 1992 or 1993.

Jesus, Ike. This is a cruel question, but could it be that your own lack of ingenuity makes you think such things are more improbable than they actually are?

Finding the address of the GRO is a feat of amazing scholarship?

How did Bongo Barrett find the address of a bookdealer in far-off Oxford who was not advertised locally? I refer to Martin Earl, of course, the procurer of blank Victorian diaries.

It seems that Barrett had more ingenuity than you give him credit for. His scholarship in finding this address is no trivial point.

[Pcdunn]

i was at the Trafalgar tavern last night looking up at the river .i see the bridges still there.
Greenwich.London

I thought I read that one was a replica now? And whichever was sold is at Lake Havasu in Arizona?

[rjpalmer]

It's enough to make you think Johnson thought the watch and its inscriptions could be genuine

It's enough to make you think Johnson started thinking his brother had been up to no good and backed out of the deal.

[erobitha]

It's a dumb question Ike, and very poorly formulated. For one thing, I don't think Albert hoaxed the watch (which you already know) so your question is irrelevant and isn't even made in good faith.

Instead, ask yourself why, if everything Albert was telling you was true, and the watch was bought as an investment for Little Daisey, why he didn't sell it Two Gun Tex and thus make this extremely generous profit for her?

Why?

Well, according to Shirley Harrison, the deal with Tex fell through when Albert discovered that his brother was selling "shares" in the watch behind his back, after falsely telling investors that the watch had been appraised at a million pounds.

A startling development commonly known as fraud.

At this point, Albert got cold feet ... and the Texan got on a plane and left!

Yet Ero smirks and tell us the watch is 'still in the family' as if this is an indication of the honesty of the entire clan, even the wayward brother who somehow finagled his way into owning a share of a watch that he had no stake in.

And despite Ero's naiveté, Robbie Johnson netted ten thousand pounds for his 'share' and Albert made another two or three grand by selling the visual rights to Feldman, so the profit motive was there. The first time they showed the watch to Feldman, they brought along a solicitor!

After Albert's death, the family again tried to sell the watch, and it was featured on the UK antiques show, Four Rooms in 2013, but apparently no one wanted to buy the watch, dismissing it as a hoax, though one person evidently offered to buy it for the price of the scrap gold.

Maybe Milchmanuk can trace this show. There are some episodes of Four Rooms on YouTube, but I haven't seen the episode in question.

1) Where is the evidence that Robbie actually made 10k in selling shares? I am aware there were rumours but I don't believe I have seen any proof of such thing actually occurred. Perhaps you could point me in the direction of your evidence
2) Feldman was quick with the cheque book with many people that is true. Probably why he died penniless and in debt I believe
3) Your naivety is exposed when it comes to TV shows. Not everything on that program is actually genuinely there to be sold. Some people use it as a platform to bring artefacts to the public's attention or to reignite interest in the history of something. The dealers are dealers and without cast iron provenance they rightly treat everything as being suspicious until proven otherwise (if you have actually ever seen the show before you will know this).

I believe the etchings to be of some significant age because the science tells us that. Which means even if the scratches were just decades old in 1994, the watch cannot be a modern hoax. The watch scratches pre-date the 1980s and could be consistent with 1888.

This boils down to the science - we can argue about handwriting until the cows come home - but the science weighs in favour of the etchings in the watch of being of some age.

Your rusty old tool by Robbie Johnson theory versus Turgoose's assessment of a complex, multi-layered process requiring many steps and significant knowledge.

Hmmm.

[milchmanuk]

I thought I read that one was a replica now? And whichever was sold is at Lake Havasu in Arizona?

i drove friends from Mile End down Whitechapel rd to Tower bridge, crossed over headed to Tooley street then Romney st. Greenwich .
Tower is the same.
the bridge sold to Texan is as ike has posted .
i thought you was talking about the pub, lol

[milchmanuk]

Milky, surely you aren't suggestion that Maybrick inscribed into the back of his watch with what I take to be a monkey wrench?

Or is a monkey grip different?

We need to know. We aren't all garage mechanics, you know ...

Monkey grip like your chopper bike is handle grip. Handle bars are Ape hangers .
hold a pen in your fist.monkey grip.
Steve vai guitarist has a monkey grip on his ibanez guitars,
so on.
i got some questions also !

[milchmanuk]

i haver a look for the show. some one knows were i get my knowledge from.
the show started on Empire day...

[milchmanuk]

i haver a look for the show. some one knows were i get my knowledge from.
the show started on Empire day...

do you know which episode i can look elsewhere.

[milchmanuk]

this is the show !

[rjpalmer]

3) Your naivety is exposed when it comes to TV shows. Not everything on that program is actually genuinely there to be sold. Some people use it as a platform to bring artefacts to the public's attention or to reignite interest in the history of something. The dealers are dealers and without cast iron provenance they rightly treat everything as being suspicious until proven otherwise (if you have actually ever seen the show before you will know this).

Yes, I know all that. One episode featured Stewart Evans showing off a hangman's noose.

I didn't see the show featuring the Maybrick watch, but I was informed by someone living the UK (who did see the show) that the watch was for sale; the spokesman was working on behalf of Albert's widow.

And anyway, your remarks are entirely misleading, since Albert Johnson himself had agreed to sell the watch to Robert Davis for $190,000. This is not in dispute. It was a done deal and Davis even flew to the UK and had money transferred into a UK account to facilitate the transfer.

It was then that Albert discovered that his brother had been selling shares and the sale fell through. The source for all of this is a diary supporter, Shirley Harrison, who describes it in The American Connection. Do you think she was lying about it? Why would she do that?

As for Robbie's share, ask Caz. The price he received was actually 15,000 pounds and not 10,000. My mistake.