The Inconvenient Truth of the Maybrick Watch

[erobitha]

I don't understand why, if the watch is genuine, Maybrick would have scratched his name in it? Or write 'I am Jack'? Why would he need/want to do that? It just seems a little too far fetched and too much of a coincidence. Fair enough if his name had been engraved in the watch or there was some provenance linking him to it but there does not seem to be. Also isn't it a watch for a woman? For me when you combine it with the bonkers tale of the diary and all its question marks and now this pretty intensive look at Maybrick as a person, it just seems totally fake to me.

I totally understand why people want it to be real. It would be amazing to tie everything up and say we finally have the culprit. But this just isn't. And as the years pass by this all just seems more and more an amateurish hoax. May have been convincing a few years back but now, no chance.

You are entitled to your opinion, everyone is.

The watch is not a ladies watch. Common misconception which has stuck. It’s a men’s dress watch.

If you are going to confess to murder it would be helpful to let others know who you are. He may have wanted it to be found by history and eventually it was.

Unless you can provide an alternative to the evidence we have in front of us today then the evidence we have in front of us today has to be the truth.

[erobitha]

Yes, I thought the same thing. If this was actually Maybrick's watch it'd be more believable if it was properly engraved with his name and then he added the initials. The signature and I am Jack smack reminds me of putting labels in the kids' clothes in case they get lost. Total hoax from start to finish.

I fail to see your logic again.

He didn’t leave his name so he could claim it easily in lost property, which is why kids clothes are labelled with their names. He did it to tell history who he was. I actually think the watch was probably connected to one of his victims and the J.O. is a clue that we just haven’t figured out yet.

Even in his time Jack the Ripper was big news. One day the watch maybe found and he will get the credit for something he was most likely quite proud of privately. I don’t know why this concept is so difficult to process.

[Aethelwulf]

Zero logic in that statement.

You are saying a forger is more likely to get the K more like James Maybrick’s own hand than Maybrick himself.

And us watch defenders get accused of pretzel thinking…

It's totally logical and you know it.

Let's say you or I wanted to acquire a large sum of money and obtaining it required a signature, what would we do? Practice the signature dozens, perhaps hundreds of times. All I am saying is that a forger's desire to pass the watch off as real would mean they'd practice the signature lots of times, and very likely produce a good copy. Unless Maybrick was familiar with engraving a hard metal surface (a difficult task), why is he more likely to get a good copy? He isn't.

[erobitha]

It's totally logical and you know it.

Let's say you or I wanted to acquire a large sum of money and obtaining it required a signature, what would we do? Practice the signature dozens, perhaps hundreds of times. All I am saying is that a forger's desire to pass the watch off as real would mean they'd practice the signature lots of times, and very likely produce a good copy. Unless Maybrick was familiar with engraving a hard metal surface (a difficult task), why is he more likely to get a good copy? He isn't.

What signature? Tell me how they got his signature in the first place. Bear in mind this had to have been between April 1993 when it was publicly known that James Maybrick was associated with the diary and June 1993 when Robert Smith was contacted by Albert Johnson. Are you aware of any signatures known at that time outside of his will stored in London?

What sum of money? It was never sold despite numerous offers.

Maybrick’s father William was an engraver.

These are all established facts. You just don’t like what they might mean.

[Aethelwulf]

What signature? Tell me how they got his signature in the first place. Bear in mind this had to have been between April 1993 when it was publicly known that James Maybrick was associated with the diary and June 1993 when Robert Smith was contacted by Albert Johnson. Are you aware of any signatures known at that time outside of his will stored in London?

Are you saying it is impossible for someone to have got a signature?

What sum of money? It was never sold despite numerous offers.
It was a hypothetical example I was giving

Maybrick’s father William was an engraver.
So what?

These are all established facts. You just don’t like what they might mean.

I would imagine a quick look online would turn up hoaxes many times more complicated than the watch/diary.

[Losmandris]

You are entitled to your opinion, everyone is.

The watch is not a ladies watch. Common misconception which has stuck. It’s a men’s dress watch.

If you are going to confess to murder it would be helpful to let others know who you are. He may have wanted it to be found by history and eventually it was.

Unless you can provide an alternative to the evidence we have in front of us today then the evidence we have in front of us today has to be the truth.

Really? The only evidence I can see is that of a hoax. None of it makes any objective sense. So he writes the diary and then just to be on the safe side that people in the future know he was Jack the Ripper he scratches his name and all the other stuff into a watch? You really have to stretch the old imagination to accept all of this don't you?

[rjpalmer]

Just as well because I can't see it matters. I can imagine scratching a passable signature on a metal surface is difficult. A hoaxer would almost certainly have made multiple practice runs before attempting the watch. In fact, I think it more likely a hoaxer would get a good signature than Maybrick who, because it was his watch, may have just made do with a once off instance. Short of Maybrick having a hobby metal engraving, the hoaxer, in my opinion, is more likely to come up with the more accurate signature.

This will sound as rude as hell, and I hope that 'Ero' and 'Ike' realize that it is nothing truly personal, but who says that the signature looks like Maybrick's? The same two blokes who think they see 'FM' written on Kelly's back wall? Sorry, but that's not conclusive.

Has the signature ever been authenticated by an actual accredited handwriting expert, or is it just a matter of amateurs giving their opinions--sometimes in the same breath that they decry amateur opinions?

Here's my amateur opinion.

Personally, I am not convinced that this famous 'loop' on the k is actually part of the signature. To me, the depth looks different from the rest of the crude scratches that make up the 'k' (which just looks like a rudely fashioned X) and I suspect that it is actually part of the network of superficial, sharp-edged, and suspicious scratches that cover the surface of the watch, and thus the viewer sees what he or she wants to see.

It would take another microscopic examination to determine whether this is correct or not.

If one actually traces the direction of the hand movements that make up Maybrick's proven signature, the letter formation of the individual letters is not the same as those that make up 'Maybrick' on the watch. As I say, that is my amateur opinion--but if anyone doubts me, do the exercise for themselves.

Over a period of 30 years, I don't recall anyone actually seeking the opinion of an accredited expert. The accredited experts that looked at the diary all dismissed it as clearly not written by Maybrick. Were any of them asked about the watch?

[rjpalmer]

Also...

For the sake of argument, let's forget the above objections and say that we all agree that there was an attempt to imitate the signature on Maybrick's wedding certificate.

Is it impossible for the hoaxer to have obtained a copy?

Why is this a reasonable objection? Has the fact that the hoaxer(s) of the dismal diary didn't even bother to imitate Maybrick's handwriting blind us to the fact that a more intelligent hoaxer may have tried to do so when creating the watch?

It's hardly rocket science that such a thought would have entered someone's brain.

There are people on this site and on JTR Forums and on dozens of genealogical sites around the internet who frequently order marriage records.

The early 1990s were before the age of the internet, of course, but there was a long enough delay between the 'Maybrick' story breaking in the newspapers and the fortuitous discovery of the etchings on the watch a few weeks later that a hoaxer could have ordered a copy of the certificate and had it mailed to Liverpool.

Did anyone check? Back in the day, did anyone contact the PRO and see if someone had recently ordered a copy?

Evidently not. So here we are, speculating.

[erobitha]

Really? The only evidence I can see is that of a hoax. None of it makes any objective sense. So he writes the diary and then just to be on the safe side that people in the future know he was Jack the Ripper he scratches his name and all the other stuff into a watch? You really have to stretch the old imagination to accept all of this don't you?

Who said the order of the events had to have unfolded in the order you describe? Why can’t the watch have existed potentially before the diary?

I am simply trying to get to the truth here and my logical brain is telling me the watch is the key and probably always has been.

As much as I disagree with RJ and others on key points, what he and they are doing is perfectly correct. We must challenge all aspects to do with the watch and diary and if we are left still asking questions or requiring more information then we need to reasonably look at those challenges.

However, we are at a place with the watch that we cannot just simply dismiss it because it’s inconvenient to our own theories and assertions. There is too much too ignore.

In answer to RJ’s point regarding the marriage certificate. What guarantee did the forger have that was even by Maybrick’s hand? Was it not common place for clerks to copy signatures for the church’s own records? The same M on that is extremely similar to that in the bible of Sarah Ann Robertson.

When will you accept the coincidences are too much? Is that you require a world expert in signature verification? What exactly will it take? Albert believed no amount of testing would please some people.

I think Albert was very wise.

[caz]

It does, however, pose a real problem for Caz...

I don't have problems, RJ, only potential solutions.

But once again you think you can speak for me. You can't, so do yourself a favour and stop trying. This is not a competition.

Perhaps I could begin to consider your latest arguments for a hoax, which had to be planned and executed between late April and early June 1993 for your diary theory to have better than a zero chance, if you would go back to the beginning and explain, in very simple terms, how and why your hoaxer attempted to mimic an authenticated Maybrick signature, when there was absolutely no need, and how you know that all the engravings, as seen under the microscope, could have been achieved using old and corroded tools - IIRC a different one for each set of initials.

You can make an art form of distracting the attention away from the more difficult posers regarding Albert's timepiece, but they won't go away on their own.

And I'm in no hurry to go anywhere either.

[erobitha]

I would imagine a quick look online would turn up hoaxes many times more complicated than the watch/diary.

What does that even mean?

It’s just drivel. If it’s a hoax (complicated or not) then let’s see how it was a hoax. Right now the evidence weighs in favour of the watch being at least decades old in 1993. So come on then, how, who, why and when?

I’ve done my part.

Fine you don’t believe the watch is real, but you have offered nothing that challenges the facts.

If you don't like the facts then carry on ignoring them.

[rjpalmer]

Perhaps I could begin to consider your latest arguments for a hoax, which had to be planned and executed between late April and early June 1993 for your diary theory to have better than a zero chance, if you would go back to the beginning and explain, in very simple terms, how and why your hoaxer attempted to mimic an authenticated Maybrick signature, when there was absolutely no need

This has already been addressed in Posts #22 and #23 above.

Has the signature been authenticated? If so, by whom?

And what evidence can you produce to show that the loop in this supposedly startlingly similar 'k' is not part of the superficial, sharp-edged scratches?

You can make an art form of distracting the attention away from the more difficult posers [sic?] regarding Albert's timepiece, but they won't go away on their own.

I suspect most see it t'other way round.

Hartley's obsession with an inconclusive and understudied timepiece is a convenient way to distract away from the glaring issues that face an obviously hoaxed diary, about which we have a great deal more information.

And at the risk of droning on in the same boring way, these glaring issues include an allusion to a police inventory list not available until the 1980s, unbonded ink, the lies and suspicious behavior of the Barretts, etc., etc, and handwriting that looks nothing at all like Maybrick's--as determined not by us amateurs, but by the best document examiners on either side of the Atlantic.

You seem to have been suggesting or implying that the watch is part of the same 'cache' taken from Battlecrease on 8 March 1992.

If this is the case, why would a hoaxer have bothered to imitate Maybrick's handwriting in almost invisible etchings on the back of a watch, but made no effort at all to imitate his handwriting on the all-important confessional diary?

How, in your view, does that make the least bit of sense?

[Aethelwulf]

What does that even mean?

It’s just drivel. If it’s a hoax (complicated or not) then let’s see how it was a hoax. Right now the evidence weighs in favour of the watch being at least decades old in 1993. So come on then, how, who, why and when?

I’ve done my part.

Fine you don’t believe the watch is real, but you have offered nothing that challenges the facts.

If you don't like the facts then carry on ignoring them.

The fact is there is no evidence that links the watch or diary to Maybrick, or any evidence they are even genuine in the first place.

[caz]

Caroline Brown and now Marcus Aurelius Franzois have also argued that the appearance of the watch in a shop window in the spring of 1992 is too coincidental, and thus they associate the watch with the horde of items allegedly removed from Battlecrease on 8 March 1992---the same caper that you associate with the floorboards of Maybrick's study having been lifted for the first time in over 100 years.

You only make a fool of yourself with such inane utterings, RJ.

The timing of the watch appearing in the shop window is highly suggestive, and would be a big fat coincidence if unconnected to the documented double event of 9th March 1992. That's it, as far as I'm concerned. I leave it to others if they wish to speculate further or reach any definite conclusions based on these known facts.

I don't 'associate' the watch with a 'horde of items' [calm down, old chap, you'll do yourself a mischief] allegedly removed on 9th March 1992.

As far as I'm aware, none of the electricians actually mentioned a watch, and IIRC only one - who wasn't present on that day - mentioned a tin box and a wedding ring, which allegedly turned out to be brass. But Albert's gold watch would have had an obvious value to anyone finding it, and could have been pocketed quickly before anyone else saw it, unlike the "old book", wrapped in yellowing brown paper, which might easily have had no value at all as far as the finder knew.

As such, I am far from confident that we have been give the whole story. Not by Dr. Turgoose, but by the man who had Albert wrapped around his finger: Robbie Johnson.

Is this an exercise in how much skulduggery you can read into a single sentence - a sentence written by Feldman, of all people, who could have read a conspiracy into a recipe for rice pudding, if he saw the name Graham or Johnson attached to it? You do a good job, RJ, but Feldman was the master.

I'd have been more than 'cold and distant', and referred Feldman straight to you, had he phoned me insisting I had two watches, one bought to cover up for another, that was passed down to me from my great grandmother, Lizzie Borden. And let me assure you, it wouldn't be because you have me wrapped around your finger.

Would you have read something sinister into my reaction, when it would merely have indicated a natural distaste for Feldman's brand of lunacy, and my knowledge that you would be better equipped to send him packing post haste?

[caz]

Just as well because I can't see it matters. I can imagine scratching a passable signature on a metal surface is difficult. A hoaxer would almost certainly have made multiple practice runs before attempting the watch. In fact, I think it more likely a hoaxer would get a good signature than Maybrick who, because it was his watch, may have just made do with a once off instance. Short of Maybrick having a hobby metal engraving, the hoaxer, in my opinion, is more likely to come up with the more accurate signature.

It's a question of how a hoaxer in 1993 could have known how James Maybrick might typically have signed his name in the 1880s, without accessing a single authenticated example.

He could have had a middle name, for example, and might always have used it, or just the initial, when signing.

It could have taken many different forms, and yet this hoaxer guessed the one form that matched - even if some claim to see no great similarity between the signature in the watch and a genuine Maybrick example.

How do I sign my name? How would you have gone about finding out, back in 1993, if you wanted to play a prank, scratching my signature into a valuable piece of gold jewellery? What would you use for your multiple practice runs? Not gold, surely? How would you rate your chances of getting a reasonable likeness, when you don't even know what form my signature takes?

Why would you even bother with a signature, when initials, or the individual letters of my surname, using capital letters, would have sufficed and been so much less likely to differ fatally from my own?

Answers on a saucy postcard...

Love,

Caz
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