What if the watch is real but the document isn't?

[Mike J. G.]

That might have been a good question, Mike, if it had been worded completely differently.

If I may be so bold, a better question might have been:

How would a hoaxer working in 1993 have set about carving a replica of the real James Maybrick's signature, without even knowing what form he used, let alone having an example in front of him to copy from?

How many gold watches do you think you'd need to deface before carving a signature in a 'good enough manner' to resemble the way, for example, I signed my name on my marriage certificate? Would you agree it couldn't be done, without first having a good idea of how I sign my name and how I form the letters I include?

You seemed to be arguing that this can't be done in a good enough manner to produce an exact match. I'd say that was fair, even for anyone trying to carve their own signature in gold. But I'd go further than that, and suggest that it shouldn't have been possible to carve anything remotely like another person's signature, without a clue what the result should look like.

If you genuinely believe it would be a piece of cake to reproduce what is on that surface, and get similar observations and conclusions from Wild and Turgoose, then put your money where your mouth is and succeed where Stanley "Dangerman" failed. You could start by investing in a gold watch, just like Albert Johnson did, but choose someone else's signature this time, so you aren't influenced by the number of times you have clocked JM's.

Come back when you have some practical experience to share, of how it was for you.

Love,

Caz
X

You're working on the assumption that I consider the signature on the watch to actually match the recorded ones we have for Jim, which is a bit fanciful, as I don't really think that they do, but that's me. Assuming that you feel that they match, do you now feel that Jim was Jack, or that it was Jim's watch, and the reason none of the other handwriting matches is because Jim didn't scratch all of the other waffle into it, or what? What's your view on it all?

I think that way too much is being made of very little, and I don't really think that the backstory of said watch is anything to hang your hat on, and if there's anything that does lend it more credibility, I've not seen it, so maybe you can point me in the right direction.

I don't feel anyone needed to sit practicing anything, because I don't feel that the scribble on the watch is anything to write home about in the first place.

[Mike J. G.]

...and response came there none. Why am I not surprised?

Caz
X

Don't be fooled, Caz, I'm incredibly inconsistent when it comes to posting, but it's not because I'm avoiding the rebuttals to comments that I'm obviously posting with the knowledge that there'll surely be a rebuttal. I'm honestly just not able to be here as much as I'd like.

Ive been reading the "Who Were They" thread, for better or worse. I'm just now reading my notifications. Be cool, Yolanda.

X

[Mike J. G.]

When you are composing your text, you can highlight the bit you want to italicise and click the slanty I icon on the ribbon at the top of the text box (where you will find lots of formatting options).

Personally, I was a young man of the '80s and learned it the shortcut way:

Control+I = Italics / Italics Off
Control+B = Bold / Bold Off
Control+U = Underline / Underline Off
Control+A = Select All (very handy for when the system automatically logs you out and you risk losing a 30-minute work of art)
Control+C = Copy (also very handy for when the system automatically logs you out and you risk losing a 30-minute work of art)
Control+W = Close Window
Control+Shift+T = Reinstate last closed tab in web browser

Et cetera ...

PS That wasn't an ellipsis - it was just a force of habit ...

Bloody hell, Ike, that's a bit complicated for me, but thank you. Clicking the italics option normally works for me, not sure what was happening that day.

[caz]

...and response came there none. Why am I not surprised?

Another stroke of luck to consider, if a hoaxer made the engravings on the back of the early and very limited publicity about the diary, without knowing what JM's signature should look like, or that initials also featured in the diary, is the one that tops the lot.

A timepiece of all things was chosen for their companion hoax, which rather begs the question of whether they knew that Maybrick, cotton merchant and fornicator, had a coat of arms bearing the legend: TEMPUS OMNIA REVELAT before hitting on the ingenious idea of a confessional watch, so that 'time' would literally reveal all.

If I had been the hoaxer and hadn't been aware of that corker, I would have been tickled pink and nobody could have wiped the smile off my face.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

How can carved initials resemble the written word in a good enough manner as to presume a match?

That might have been a good question, Mike, if it had been worded completely differently.

If I may be so bold, a better question might have been:

How would a hoaxer working in 1993 have set about carving a replica of the real James Maybrick's signature, without even knowing what form he used, let alone having an example in front of him to copy from?

How many gold watches do you think you'd need to deface before carving a signature in a 'good enough manner' to resemble the way, for example, I signed my name on my marriage certificate? Would you agree it couldn't be done, without first having a good idea of how I sign my name and how I form the letters I include?

You seemed to be arguing that this can't be done in a good enough manner to produce an exact match. I'd say that was fair, even for anyone trying to carve their own signature in gold. But I'd go further than that, and suggest that it shouldn't have been possible to carve anything remotely like another person's signature, without a clue what the result should look like.

If you genuinely believe it would be a piece of cake to reproduce what is on that surface, and get similar observations and conclusions from Wild and Turgoose, then put your money where your mouth is and succeed where Stanley "Dangerman" failed. You could start by investing in a gold watch, just like Albert Johnson did, but choose someone else's signature this time, so you aren't influenced by the number of times you have clocked JM's.

Come back when you have some practical experience to share, of how it was for you.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

I tried to do it in Italics but it didn't work.

When you are composing your text, you can highlight the bit you want to italicise and click the slanty I icon on the ribbon at the top of the text box (where you will find lots of formatting options).

Personally, I was a young man of the '80s and learned it the shortcut way:

Control+I = Italics / Italics Off
Control+B = Bold / Bold Off
Control+U = Underline / Underline Off
Control+A = Select All (very handy for when the system automatically logs you out and you risk losing a 30-minute work of art)
Control+C = Copy (also very handy for when the system automatically logs you out and you risk losing a 30-minute work of art)
Control+W = Close Window
Control+Shift+T = Reinstate last closed tab in web browser

Et cetera ...

PS That wasn't an ellipsis - it was just a force of habit ...

[erobitha]

For the benefit of Mike J.G.

A little bit of science for you.

"Stanley Dangar, for reasons I never understood, decided the scratches had been recently engraved and that Bristol and Manchester Universities were wrong. He also believed the watch to be a lady’s watch. He talked to me of a ‘conspiracy’ led by Paul Feldman and he joined in the battle on the Internet to this effect and said that he was arranging simulation tests in Germany to prove that brass particles could easily be embedded in the watch artificially. Those tests did not work. ‘We had a little difficulty,’ he told me later. In fact, by April 1997, the laboratories had still failed to make brass particles stick into gold."
- Shirley Harrison

The nonsense of an old etching tool (e.g. rusty compass) would not leave aged brass particles in the BASE of the engravings. It would leave trace evidence on the sides of the engravings too. The fact the are embedded in the base proves they are of considerable age. Embedded particles. Do you have any idea how big a particle is?

"Dr Wild told Robert Smith privately that he personally felt the scratches could be as old as 1888/9. So both Dr Turgoose and Dr Wild agreed that the likelihood of anyone acquiring the considerable technical and scientific expertise necessary to create scratches that would pass their test was very remote. Both agreed, too, that the scratches were at least several decades old, thus ruling out any possibility that the watch is a modern forgery."

So we have a watch that cannot be a modern forgery based on all of the scientific analysis, unless someone had the necessary skill and equipment to pass the tests - which are very remote. The polishing of the scratches is as relevant to the point of aged brass particles as your squeezey cheese reference.

The above is established scientific fact. On this basis we can conclusively rule the watch out as being a modern forgery. It dates to the latest the 1970s and potentially as far back as the LVP. That is where the watch stands on absolute science today.

Did Maybrick etch it? Well we have no scientific proof. But there are some remarkable similarities to marriage licence, especially with the ornate M, double loop on the K and the loop in the Y.

That's remarkable luck for a 1970s forger long before the advent of the internet.

[Iconoclast]

The very bloke that did the analysis said it could have been artificially aged using the same process I described. I'm not sure where the mystery here is. He literally says it in his own analysis. The only point of contention is his own belief that it would be difficult to do, despite unwittingly claiming it could be done simply by polishing.

Just so we're all clear, the metallurgist who said "But it's fairly easy to polish out some scratches to make them look old and layered" didn't also say "and as for embedding aged particles - well, any idiot just needs an old school compass".

It's interesting how easy it is to be selective, isn't it?

Is this the same wedding license that doesn't match the diary's writing??? Didn't you claim that there's little evidence James wrote that signature on the license?

Stick to the argument, Mike. The signature on the watch is an extremely good facsimile for that on the wedding licence. No need to try to shift focus away from this by suddenly throwing in the scrapbook, now is there? If you can't make your argument stick regarding the licence and the watch, just admit it, and then - if you have to - try your little deflection technique.

By the way, I don't recall claiming that there's little evidence James signed his marriage licence but I'm happy to be corrected. Who do you think did, then? A hoaxer, sneaking in ahead of him? Maybrick: "Oh, no need to sign it - someone's already done a really bad job of it for me".

How can carved initials resemble the written word in a good enough manner as to presume a match?

I've no idea what you mean by this.

[Mike J. G.]

Just to save me the hassle of looking up something you appear to have abridged, could you clarify for us all what is represented by the ellipsis, please?

I'm sure it was nothing, but it does not to be clarified for the avoidance of any doubt as to what was originally said (a lesson, I believe, much taught by Lord Orsam himself back in the days before his dramatic resignation from the Casebook to spend more time with his family). On an entirely grammatical point, would I be right in saying that an ellipsis starts and ends with a space? (Just asking for a friend.)

That's the exact quote as I found it, Ike, I have abridged absolutely nothing. I literally copy and pasted that passage, I tried to do it in Italics but it didn't work. You can find it in the Maybrick Wiki as it appears above.

The main thrust of your argument around the embedding of aged particles to be later 'discovered' and 'dated' to many decades ago is that those scientists [see what I did there? - used your term to set up an argument against your position] whose speciality was metallurgy made pointless assessments on age [which was the objective of the exercise and what they were being paid to deliver] as they were so desperate to provide the client with a positive outcome that they completely forgot to add "thanks for the cheque ... but, mind, any idiot could also do it with an old school compass and a lot of rags".

The very bloke that did the analysis said it could have been artificially aged using the same process I described. I'm not sure where the mystery here is. He literally says it in his own analysis. The only point of contention is his own belief that it would be difficult to do, despite unwittingly claiming it could be done simply by polishing.

This is akin to "experts" claiming that (insert favourite hoax here) could be done but only by a fella what's really really clever. It's a nonsense. The fact remains, it could be artificially aged, therefore, claiming it couldn't be or wasn't, is a lie.

I deeply distrust any argument that contradicts specialist opinion - not because I believe specialists to always be correct but because I suspect it is more likely that facile retorts are more likely to come from a deeply biased perspective.

Then you deeply distrust the argument made by the very man who did the analysis in the first place, Ike, for it was him who claimed it could be forged, it was just his... wait for it, OPINION, that it would've had to have been done by someone in the know, despite how easily he claimed it could be done: polishing.

Talk about being biased, there's been enough opinion on record that the initials on the watch cannot definitively be aged, yet you and others choose to believe that they could not and were not. That's a deeply biased perspective. I'm simply reading what was written and pointing out how the analysis DID NOT prove the watches initials as genuine. That you find issue with that basic fact isn't my problem, mate.

PS The Maybrick signature on the watch is an extremely good match for the known Maybrick signature on his wedding licence. Is there any need for us to explore how that was possible or should we just conveniently ignore it in the same self-serving way you did (despite supposedly seeking evidence for or against)?

Ike

Is this the same wedding license that doesn't match the diary's writing??? Didn't you claim that there's little evidence James wrote that signature on the license? How can carved initials resemble the written word in a good enough manner as to presume a match?

[Iconoclast]

They could have been produced recently, and deliberately artificially aged by polishing, but this would have been a complex multi-stage process...many of the features are only resolved by the scanning electron microscope, not being readily apparent in optical microscopy, and so, if they were of recent origin, the engraver would have to be aware of the potential evidence available from this technique, indicating a considerable skill and scientific awareness

Just to save me the hassle of looking up something you appear to have abridged, could you clarify for us all what is represented by the ellipsis, please?

I'm sure it was nothing, but it does not to be clarified for the avoidance of any doubt as to what was originally said (a lesson, I believe, much taught by Lord Orsam himself back in the days before his dramatic resignation from the Casebook to spend more time with his family). On an entirely grammatical point, would I be right in saying that an ellipsis starts and ends with a space? (Just asking for a friend.)

The main thrust of your argument around the embedding of aged particles to be later 'discovered' and 'dated' to many decades ago is that those scientists [see what I did there? - used your term to set up an argument against your position] whose speciality was metallurgy made pointless assessments on age [which was the objective of the exercise and what they were being paid to deliver] as they were so desperate to provide the client with a positive outcome that they completely forgot to add "thanks for the cheque ... but, mind, any idiot could also do it with an old school compass and a lot of rags".

I deeply distrust any argument that contradicts specialist opinion - not because I believe specialists to always be correct but because I suspect it is more likely that facile retorts are more likely to come from a deeply biased perspective.

PS The Maybrick signature on the watch is an extremely good match for the known Maybrick signature on his wedding licence. Is there any need for us to explore how that was possible or should we just conveniently ignore it in the same self-serving way you did (despite supposedly seeking evidence for or against)?

Ike

[Mike J. G.]

Very good, erobitha - made me chuckle.

Ike

Good to see you've still got a support group on here, mate. Y'all need each other like the diary needs a provenance. Desperately!

[Mike J. G.]

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of self-improvement with regards to understanding words and definitions - in particular what the word "science" means. I took your advice and found that according to Oxford English Dictionary (other dictionaries are available) and it concludes "The state or fact of knowing; knowledge or cognizance of something; knowledge as a personal attribute. Now archaic and rare". More words for me to learn.

Put your handbag away, mate.

Passive agressive banter aside, this type of forgery as you suggest wiith regards to the watch is near impossible to replicate without expert knowledge and expensive machinery to place aged brass particles (do you know how big a particle is? Not very big) into the base of engravings. Perhaps the lab had aged brass particles flying around the room which somehow on the gust of wind found their way into the engravings by pure coincidence and accident. In which case it can't be a very good lab. But by all accounts these are world-class in their field of knowledge. But still, Robbie Johnson might have had the brainwave himself and dusted down his old school microscope kit and did it himself. Which is not possible scientifically and certainly most likely outside of Robbie's own many skills.

See, you say that you understand how science works, then you post that. As far as I'm aware, there's absolutely no evidence to suggest that the watch wasn't forged, in fact, the last I read on it was that it wasn't possible to date it accurately. I've seen nothing to suggest that the watch would need to be replicated with expert knowledge and expensive machinery, that's basically down to cherry-picking pieces of the existing analysis because it's what you'd prefer to believe. That's about as far from science as squeezy-cheese is to dairy.

"On the basis of the evidence...especially the order in which the markings were made, it is clear that the engravings pre-date the vast majority of superficial surface scratch marks...the wear apparent on the engravings, evidenced by the rounded edges of the markings and 'polishing out' in places, would indicate a substantial age...whilst there is no evidence which would indicate a recent (last few years) origin...it must be emphasised that there are no features observed which conclusively prove the age of the engravings. They could have been produced recently, and deliberately artificially aged by polishing, but this would have been a complex multi-stage process...many of the features are only resolved by the scanning electron microscope, not being readily apparent in optical microscopy, and so, if they were of recent origin, the engraver would have to be aware of the potential evidence available from this technique, indicating a considerable skill and scientific awareness"

Ironically, the same was said of the Mussolini diaries, which were written and aged using the most obvious way, artificially and in an oven, IIRC, and they indeed fooled the many "experts" who initially reviewed them, and lest we forget that the Mussolini diaries were afforded far more analysis than the so-called Maybrick watch, which can't even be traced back to James.

So the question is, if you believe the particles could be faked - how? The watch wasn't sold at the time, by Albert's own choice and he was offered serious money. So why fake it? Motivation is usually money, and many seem to think that was Robbie's motivation, but money never came. Method would have to be by someone so skilled that Robbie would have had to pay alot of money to convince this was a good idea to do on his behalf. But the method only matters if the motivation can be achieved. Nobody with that kind of skill would do it for a laugh or a favour.

That Albert believed it could be genuine doesn't lend any credence to it actually being genuine, surely you understand this. Are you saying that the initials couldn't have been aged deliberately? You're sincerely asking me to explain how it could have been faked? This has been discussed before. Simply using an old tool with which to carve the initials would suffice, as far as I can recall. The deposits are then left inside the carvings and the eventual polishing that happened would render any proper conclusion in the air, which is precisely what happened.

Here's another reminder about how science works: if you want to prove that something is so, you do it. So far, nobody has proven that the watch is a genuinely old artifact containing genuinely old carvings, much less that they're carvings pertaining to the Ripper killings, much less that they were carved by Jim on a watch owned by Jim.

Nobody on this earth need prove that they aren't the real deal.

It remains an inconvenient truth, and just because you don't like the timing doesn't make the science any less valid. But then, I have only just learned what science means. What do I know?

What you should know is the obvious fact that science is about proving a positive, surely. Whether you actually fully grasp this simple concept is open to debate, maybe that's the inconvenient truth here, fella.

[Scott Nelson]

A playwright and a brother out on a lark?

[miakaal4]

Who knows? A disgruntled husband, business rivals.

[Scott Nelson]

Then, do you think Maybrick had any enemies?