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

[Mike J. G.]

For the benefit of Mike J.G.

A little bit of science for you.


"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.

I fail to see where the personal beliefs of two scientists becomes established scientific fact, especially when you suggest in the same paragraph that a forgery cannot be ruled out.

So would it have been impossible for the carvings to have been more modern? If not, then that's not established scientific fact, is it?

The truth, as far as I can see, is that the carvings are not conclusively proven to be from the time period in which they're supposed to be from. That's about as far away from established scientific fact as one can get. It's just yet more uncertainty in an already swelling sea of uncertainty.

[Mike J. G.]

Anyway, it's Saturday! Been lovely catching up with you strange folks, I'll be back soon. This wasn't a one-off visit.

And, play nice, this nonsense isn't worth topping oneself over, y'know? Take refreshment over at your local Poste House and enjoy your weekend, you arsenics.

[erobitha]

That's kind of the point, mate. You seem to be implying that the facts are that the carvings are several decades old, and I'm saying that it's not the established fact at all, and that we really don't know one way or another, which is exactly where we are with the scrapbook. Nowhere. It's all about what you want to believe.

I can't really get behind the idea of the"diary" being hoaxed to support the watch, it just doesn't make much sense to me, so maybe you can explain that to me...

Yes, I don't honestly see any match in handwriting beyond one letter that isn't far off but isn't conclusive evidence for what you're saying here. The writer of the diary seems to lay claim to Dear Boss, whose writing matches another letter, but not the scrapbook, which is a huge issue if you fancy Jim as Jack.

Don't pretend like you didn't smile at my poetry, kemosabe, it's miles better than the scrapbook's attempts

Why so cereal?

The facts are that scientists have said that the engravings are several decades old. The caveat in Turgoose's case is arse-covering fear of the "multi-stage process" - just in case. Do you think Albert or Robbie Johnson could pull that off? Turgoose himself said he couldn't. But a couple of scally scousers did?

So if the carvings in 1993 and 1994 were several decades old, means it cannot be a modern hoax. I am not making claims on anything to do with the diary.

Clearly, you struggle with the fact the watch might not be a hoax. I don't think my theory would make any difference to you right now, so I'll keep it to myself. For now, I am focused on establishing that both items came from Battlecrease House in March 1992, and then I will gladly furnish you with my thoughts if you give a toss at that point. It's way beyond most people's comprehension at the moment. One step at a time, eh?

I agree with you that more evidence would be helpful, but then as Albert once said, "We could go on forever testing the watch, but it will never please some people."

Maybe the provenance angle will open up more minds if we are able to acquire some fresher information. I doubt it.

I'm not a special K. But I do know a few.

[rjpalmer]

"B" is the bollocks we're asked to believe

Damn, mate. You’re a better poet than Barrett.

Speaking of bollocks we are asked to believe…

Have you ever asked yourself why James Maybrick needed to secretly sign his own watch? Did he think he might forget that it was his, or what his own name was?

Or is it more obviously the work of a third party who is furiously signaling to the gullible of the world, “Look everybody, it’s Jim Maybrick’s watch!”

”And if he didn’t so convenient sign it, we’d have no way of knowing that!”

Think about it. It’s fairly stupid, isn’t it? He knew whose watch it was, didn’t he?

Instead of the “inconvenient truth,” maybe we should call it the “wildly convenient signature.”

Anyway, good luck in your travels, and enjoy your time outside the asylum.

[erobitha]

Damn, mate. You’re a better poet than Barrett.

Speaking of bollocks we are asked to believe…

Have you ever asked yourself why James Maybrick needed to secretly sign his own watch? Did he think he might forget that it was his, or what his own name was?

Or is it more obviously the work of a third party who is furiously signaling to the gullible of the world, “Look everybody, it’s Jim Maybrick’s watch!”

”And if he didn’t so convenient sign it, we’d have no way of knowing that!”

Think about it. It’s fairly stupid, isn’t it? He knew whose watch it was, didn’t he?

Instead of the “inconvenient truth,” maybe we should call it the “wildly convenient signature.”

Anyway, good luck in your travels, and enjoy your time outside the asylum.

A confession is stupid is it? Of course he didn’t scratch his name in the watch for his own benefit. He wanted history to find it. He wanted the world to know posthumously who he was.

It is entirely plausible the thing he confessed to Florence just before he died which scared her, may have exactly been that.

We don’t know yet how the watch left Verity’s workshop (Leeds or Lancaster depending on which watchmaker you think made it) and eventually found it’s way into Albert Johnson’s possession.

For all we know, Maybrick could have done it as a macabre practical joke for idiots like me to latch on to 135 years later. However, we know that can’t be true as at the time they (press or police) were not claiming these victims as the only victims of JtR. So it has to be real or a modern enough hoax.

We still have much to learn.

[caz]

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.

No assumptions from me on this one, Mike. My point was very simple but I'll try to phrase it in another way:

You have a gold watch which you wish to deface with someone - anyone - else's signature. It doesn't matter whose signature you will be attempting to forge, but you don't actually know how that person signed their name, and you have no easy access to an example known to be genuine, which would have given you the form and style they always used [eg J Bloggs/Joe Bloggs/Joseph Bloggs/JH Bloggs/Joe H Bloggs/Joseph H Bloggs/J Harry Bloggs/Joe Harry Bloggs/Joseph Harry Bloggs/or just JB followed by an indecipherable squiggle - I'm sure you could think of more combinations, but you get the drift], which you could then have had a stab at copying.

So it doesn't actually matter for this exercise whether or not we think the Maybrick signature in the watch is a match for the real thing, or a fair likeness or a poor one. What matters is how a Johnson brother hoaxing the watch in 1993 could be expected to have got the basic form and style of signature correct for Jim Maybrick [if not to reproduce an identical signature in gold, to those written on paper with pen and ink by the old devil himself], unless it is being argued that Albert or Robbie Johnson got access to genuine examples before one of them set to work.

Oh, and before he set to work with his chosen engraving tool, this 1993 hoaxer also apparently managed to do what the Murphys had failed to do the previous year. They had used jeweller's rouge in early 1992 to try and reduce the appearance of visible scratch marks on the same surface where the Maybrick signature etc would be found the following year by Albert's workmates. The scientific reports later proved that there were no scratches visible, even at the microscopic level, beneath the suspicious markings. So if the jeweller's rouge didn't manage to remove every last trace of the harmless scratches seen in 1992, the hoaxer must have used some miracle product the Murphys knew nothing about.

I just can't make this one work, and I have yet to see it being made to work by anyone who believes in a 1993 bandwagon hoax.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I'm posting on my phone in one of the many Poste Houses of Liverpool, so bare with me, folks. I'm not pished, though, I promish.

I hope you didn't bare all and get yourself arrested, Mike.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The facts are that scientists have said that the engravings are several decades old. The caveat in Turgoose's case is arse-covering fear of the "multi-stage process" - just in case. Do you think Albert or Robbie Johnson could pull that off? Turgoose himself said he couldn't. But a couple of scally scousers did?

So if the carvings in 1993 and 1994 were several decades old, means it cannot be a modern hoax. I am not making claims on anything to do with the diary.

Clearly, you struggle with the fact the watch might not be a hoax. I don't think my theory would make any difference to you right now, so I'll keep it to myself. For now, I am focused on establishing that both items came from Battlecrease House in March 1992, and then I will gladly furnish you with my thoughts if you give a toss at that point. It's way beyond most people's comprehension at the moment. One step at a time, eh?

I agree with you that more evidence would be helpful, but then as Albert once said, "We could go on forever testing the watch, but it will never please some people."

Maybe the provenance angle will open up more minds if we are able to acquire some fresher information. I doubt it.

I'm not a special K. But I do know a few.

Hi ero,

I do think those who have managed to convince themselves that the diary is a Barrett hoax are cutting off their own blood supply to alternatives. If they can't make the watch work as a 1993 Johnson brothers production - and I don't see how they ever will - their best bet would surely be to give up on the nonsense that has the diary being created on a dining table in Goldie Street, between 1st and 13th April 1992, and focus on it having been written at any time up until 8th March 1992 by someone who already knew about the watch and its engravings, before it ended up in the jeweller's shop across the Mersey.

Love,

Caz
X

[erobitha]

Hi ero,

I do think those who have managed to convince themselves that the diary is a Barrett hoax are cutting off their own blood supply to alternatives. If they can't make the watch work as a 1993 Johnson brothers production - and I don't see how they ever will - their best bet would surely be to give up on the nonsense that has the diary being created on a dining table in Goldie Street, between 1st and 13th April 1992, and focus on it having been written at any time up until 8th March 1992 by someone who already knew about the watch and its engravings, before it ended up in the jeweller's shop across the Mersey.

Love,

Caz
X

100% spot on.