Private sale

[Lechmere]

We are told the Littlechild letter had excellent provenance. Yet it was necessary to test and was done so without compliant.

I presume you think the Marginalia had excellent provenance yet it was tested several times.
These subjects are not off topic.

The 2006 test was incidentally inconclusive.

There is nothing to say that the potential forger did it all alone or that he did not get an accomplice later. Access to the Crime Museum would not have been difficult to anyone reasonably well connected. You seem to think that because it was in Scotland Yard that this gives it special protection and that it was secure. Farcical.

You have been told several times why the information in the letter may have been repeated in the unused article. If you have difficulty in understanding it go get a grown up to explain it to you.

If you think the Marginalia is genuine beyond doubt then that is your prerogative.
In my opinion they will never be fully accepted unless these issues are closed off and the Swansons will not get anything like their potential worth, and for example Adam Wood’s pending book will be based on information over which doubts remain.
None of this is my problem.

CPenny
Did you miss a ‘not’ out if your first sentence?

If you have followed this thread you should see that it has been pointed out here that there are reasons to suspect that both the Scotland Yard documents and the 1923 letter may not be what they are purported to be. There may be legitimate explanations for this, but that isn’t the point.

Also there are legitimate reasons to question Dr Davis’ second report. The first was inconclusive. This has also been discussed at length in this thread and doesn’t need repeating.

If the supporting documents are shown to be forgeries it will mean almost certainly that some or all of the Marginalia is also a forgery – that should be obvious.

The Crime Museum material has zero provenance.

The 1923 letter has better provenance that is true – but only to the brother of Jim Swanson who co-found the Marginalia.
However the significance of this letter provenance was missed by Adam Wood in his Ripperologist article as he did not discuss it. And against that we have the possible incongruity of Dr Davis’ parkinsonism reference.
Adam Wood also missed the significance of the Express letter which was only published for the first time in this thread.
This tells me that no consideration was given to the provenance and hence value as evidence of the supporting documents when Dr Davis conducted his second test. They were taken at face value. Critical faculties were suspended.

[Jenni Shelden]

The 2006 test was incidentally inconclusive.
.

The report contained a conclusion which stated, amongst other things
"there is stong evidence to support the proposition Swanson wrote the questioned annotations" [i.e point 3 in lieklihood on a nine point scale]

It wasn't inconclusive, it stated the above with certain qualifications made to this, one being that more contemporanous writing would be beneficial. This occured in the second set of tests

Jenni

[Jenni Shelden]

There is nothing to say that the potential forger did it all alone or that he did not get an accomplice later. Access to the Crime Museum would not have been difficult to anyone reasonably well connected. You seem to think that because it was in Scotland Yard that this gives it special protection and that it was secure. Farcical.

Hi Ed,
I missed where anyone said that they felt the Crime museum was inpenatrable. But behind the back of a filing cabinet, seems a little out of the way. On top of this I assume you are referring to a limited period after the NOTW closed, although elsewhere you did mention it could have happened anytime after 1987. Even taking all this aside, I think it would be fair to state that the number of visitors to this closed to the public museum would be less than to one open to the public, which, i'm sure, being the reasonable persno you are, you agree with.

You mention people who were reasonably well connected. I don't know exactly what you mean by this, but when I read it, i assumed it to be less people than the number of people who may have visited once.

I dont think anyone is saying because it was Scotland Yard it was like fort knox. It applies to any musuem with a restrcited access policy.

best wishes
Jenni

[Jenni Shelden]

If the supporting documents are shown to be forgeries it will mean almost certainly that some or all of the Marginalia is also a forgery – that should be obvious.

Actually, as strange as it seems this is not the case. It makes it less likely possibly, or it makes it SEEM less likely more accurately.

You have continually pointed the the finger in the direction of someone who was dead in 2011 and said the closure of the NOTW is a factor in your doubt. The person who could have therefore "planted" these documents (in your scenerio) would not, in your scenerio, know they needed to do so to back up the marginalia because they already think the marginalia is genuine, unless there is a nest of forgers working together, or the original forger told lots of people what they had done (all this is incredibly complicated and it is far safer to just not forge anything). I am talking about what your scenerio is here. I do not believe your scenerio makes sense.

I dont believe anyone has forged anything in this case.

If I have a document that says Spice Girls had five members and then 20 years later someone forges a document to support this claim, this doesnt mean the original document is fake? No, the Spice Girls had five members and all the other information still points to this.

Jenni

[Jenni Shelden]

Let's get down to some specifics.

One suggestion is that Jim Swanson, by himself, faked the marginalia and the supporting documents, including the draft News of the World article found in the Crime Museum.

Are you saying that it's credible that Jim Swanson, without any help from anyone else, could have gained access to the Crime Museum and planted the article there?

In case you need me to ask Chris's question again because you are incapable of talking to him

[Robert]

Should we check the KEO time capsule while we still have the chance? I wouldn't want to see possible forgeries drip-fed to Ripperworld in 50 000 years' time.

[Ally]

I do have to say, that out of all the items pulled from the Crackpot Theorist's Grab Bag of Stupid Arguments, the "drip fed" argument is by far my favorite.

Because it's completely unheard of to discover things over time with additional research. No, everything there is to know about something is waiting in a box all to be discovered at once and presented complete.

[Lechmere]

Jenni
As you are fair minded and agreeable I am sure you will accept that the matter was not concluded in 2006 otherwise there would not have been a second report.
The 2006 report was inconclusive as it didn't conclude or end matters.
I hope you can confirm this?

[CPenney]

Jenni
As you are fair minded and agreeable I am sure you will accept that the matter was not concluded in 2006 otherwise there would not have been a second report.
The 2006 report was inconclusive as it didn't conclude or end matters.
I hope you can confirm this?

Normally, in a scientific or empirical test, "inconclusive" usually means that there was not sufficient information either way for the tester to form an opinion (which was not teh case in the 2006 report). If you want to use the "not completely certain" definition, then let's use that one.

I will acknoweldge that the 2006 report was not firm enough in it's conclusions to pur the matter to rest, if you confirm that the 2012 report did, and that any "doubt" surrounding any other matierial does not and cannot change that.

Regardless of our opinions on the 2006 test, should we not now consider it superseded, and confine our academic duscussion of the marginalia in light of the most recent test?

[Chris]

You have been told several times why the information in the letter may have been repeated in the unused article. If you have difficulty in understanding it go get a grown up to explain it to you.

No. You explain it to me.

Explain why any faker should put false information into a fake document, when that information is well known to be false and the discrepancy is guaranteed to be discovered if the document is published.

Why would any faker in his right mind do that?

[CPenney]

Tucked away at the back of a box at the Crime museum? Is that the excellent provenance you mean? Would it not be fair to say that documents surfacing in that manner actually lack provenance?

Even if they were shown to be forgeries, what would that demonstrate?

That there were forgeries in the group of material surrounding the Swanson marginalia, I´d say. What further implications that would have is hard to say, but I strongly suspect that the marginalia itself - tested or not tested - would suffer a decline in trust.

I stand corrected. If, as you point out, they have a different provenance than the Marginalia, how would their authenticity (or not) have any effect in the minds of legitimate researchers on the trustworthiness of the marginalia?

[Lechmere]

CPenny
That was an extraordinary thing to say.
If the unused Scotland Yard documents (which have zero provenance) are tested and found to be fakes, then no legitimate researcher would touch the Marginalia with a bargepole.
Can you not see the implication?
The unused Scotland Yard documents would have been forged to legitimise the Marginalia. They were found prior to the second Davis test remember.
Why would anyone forge those documents if the Marginalia was genuine? A bout of over enthusiasm perhaps?

[Chris]

However the significance of this letter provenance was missed by Adam Wood in his Ripperologist article as he did not discuss it.
...
Adam Wood also missed the significance of the Express letter which was only published for the first time in this thread.

Another way of looking at it is that Adam didn't mention this information because he didn't anticipate anyone coming up with the nonsensical crackpot theories that have been aired on this thread.

I say theories that have been aired, but probably it would have been better to say innuendo that has been hinted at ...

[The Good Michael]

Wanting, begging, hoping, pleading, praying, and whining doesn't make something fake. This thread is dead for the crackpots and a running gag for the others.

Mike

[Chris]

Why would anyone forge those documents if the Marginalia was genuine?

More to the point is that question you have consistently refused to answer - why would anyone faking those documents have included information that was demonstrably false, and would inevitably have been recognised to be false as soon as the documents were published?

If you believe this stuff you are posting, you must have in mind some kind of answer to that question. Or is it possible you don't believe a word of it?