South of No North: Stories of the Buried Life - Fake Signature? (1 Viewer)

Hi,

My parents recently bought me a supposedly signed copy of South of No North: Stories of the Buried Life. I was delighted by the gesture but I have some doubts about the authenticity of the sig.

Underneath it says Black Sparrow Press etc 1992 and it also says its the twenty first printing. So this means it was printed and signed 2 years before he died?

That seems odd already seeing as the book was first printed 1973?

The sig itself looks bad to me, though I dont really know anything about these things. Based on other sigs I've seen I am concerned about the gap in the charles and the B in bukowski. also the shakeyness and jagged lines. and the overall shape of the sig. The doodle looks very genuine to me although again theres some jagged lines where it looks like the pen has stopped especially on the left "leg" also the small line on the B seems as though they were about to draw a smaller loop and then changed it to a much wider one.

other sigs ive seen have part of the "ukowski" within the loop of the B

the book was bought on ebay UK and payed through paypal. As it was a gift I dont know how much was payed for it though I will try to find out. Seeing as it has already been paid for do I have any rights if this does turn out to be considered a fake (by the experts here).

As I said I really dont know anything about these things and I would really appreciate any opinions. Ive seen another sig from 1992 which looked completely different.

thanks in advance for any help with this!

sonnsig.jpg
 
It's very difficult to judge. My initial opinion is that it is genuine. The sun looks real, although the little man is not one of the best, but I would have to presume that this was signed towards the end of his life when sadly his health was often poor. The signature looks quite natural, although shakey.

I would suspect the value to be about $70-$150 USD max.
 
It looks like a lot of the signatures you see in the signed editions of Pulp. Like hank solo said, a very late signature when Bukowski was on his last legs (so the 1992 publication date fits). The "Hi" comic book dialog bubble is pretty unusual. Overall it looks genuine for the period.
 
also the small line on the B seems as though they were about to draw a smaller loop and then changed it to a much wider one.

other sigs ive seen have part of the "ukowski" within the loop of the B

it looks to me that the small line on the b is him starting to write the u
 
Ah great thank you all very much! Thats made me feel alot better. I guess I was just getting paranoid because I really didnt want it to be fake. I see what you meen about the line on the b being part of the u also. Thanks guys!
 
The signature is probably too late to be one of his guerrilla autographs. He had stopped doing that in the local bookstores by the time his handwriting had deteriorated to that point. I don't think he sketched in many of those either.
 

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