Selling History? How WWII Signatures Became a Cash Grab

I promise this is going to be the last video I do for a long while on signatures, Luftwaffe, RAF, whoever.

They're not historic people, but what they are now are commodities.

And we're going to be looking at that because a lot of the comments have been saying to me that erasing Gunther Ryle's thing was an affront to history.

It really wasn't, folks.

But that him signing that print had some sort of meaning.

Now, the problem with that is, is there is an entire industry based around these signatures and what these signatures mean to certain people.

Because they have a monetary value.

It's like people spending millions of dollars on a baseball card.

And this is becoming something that happens more often where...

the original print that the person actually signed doesn't really mean a lot anymore.

What do I mean? Well, I've been shopping and I have bought an example.

So if you ever go to the RAF club in London, they have one of the most amazing collections of paintings, originals hanging on the wall as you go up the main staircase.

It's really, really nice.

And on the wall, There are a number of lovely Frank Wooten paintings, including the original of this one, which is Typhoon Squadron.

And this came out 30, 40 years ago and was signed by a number of aces.

Ish.

We'll get into that in a second.

But as you might notice, something's happened to this one.

This print has no flaws at all.

It's lovely.

There it is.

But they've cut all the names out of the bottom.

Why? Well, because there's new...

prints coming out that require Roland Biemont's signature, that require everyone else's signature that was on this.

And we'll have a look at that in a second, because this is still listed on the Cranston Fine Arts website.