Does this throw into question some of the contributions made to JL's (excellent but now flawed) Blog?
And ultimatiey the value and authenticity of the "reproduction" and its plunneting value since the blog.
Should this disclosure be added to the blog?

not sure i get you.

john's blog is as accurate a record as you're likely to find but because john didn't print the originals and log every single one when he did so, he has to rely on evidence and his own judgement. he has an original UK copy but, last i heard, not a US slick. contrary to some ebay sellers there was no US cover made, only custom versions like olsen's recently offered one. this is my own assessment, there's no way to know this for a fact.

olsen seems to be the closest to the project and i'm sure 33 years on his claim that only four were made is subject to question. perhaps it was six, perhaps it was twenty. he probably said four at the beginning and has had to keep up the "lie" if there were more. to me any figure under fifty would make it one of the rarest bowie items on the planet, but i'd guess that the figure is around ten. that's only a guess. any more than that and there would be far more counterfeits and far more authenticated ebay sales.

if olsen made his mock-up at the time as i believe he did then he wouldn't have been thinking about the value in the future. sticking tickets and backstage passes to the wall isn't indicative of a careful, forward thinking collector. he also had the other copies and probably sold them off over a period of time. people's lives and priorities change, he may not care a jot for bowie in 2010.

the UK counterfeit is worthless to some, potentially £50-£90 to others who don't expect to ever find or afford the real thing. but if you could see it side by side with a genuine promo or slick (as plenty of john's scans will prove) it's clearly a copy. i work in design and print, i know the "tricks of the trade" and what to look for. others won't which is why people buy and sell counterfeits with no malicious intent or gullibility.

just as this forum and IdbD are continually updated as new information comes to light, i'm sure john will continue to amend his blog when he feels the information is relevant and can be backed up.

Olsen is now auctioning his Station To Station artwork without a reserve and a starting bid of only 99 cents.

eBay

I'm stunned, the final price on Olsen's slick was US$847.

There's now yet another colour proof on eBay, this time in it's original state:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0573703412

The same seller also has a black and white proof for sale:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0573709469

And the colours look right, but I'll wait for a more knowledgeable member to comment before saying too much

I'm sort of scooping up a question from another topic about the best fakes and this is aimed at the graphic designers amongst us.

Two questions;

1) If I had an original of a slick such as this, i.e. any printed single sheet material, could it be replicated by a professional to such a high standard that it would be virtually impossible to tell apart from the fake?

2) Given the ability to digitally fake or recreate almost anything using photoshop etc, could a version of this be created from existing, publicly available materials and then professionally printed?

I guess the overarching question is, could a fan who was also a printer and graphic designer be theoretically able to create fakes that would hard or impossible to pick. Let's call them replicas to be kind.

We've kind of talked around this before in b various posts and I hope it is seen as germane to this thread.

Thanks,

Christian

yes and no... a fellow professional should be able to tell them apart but sometimes only with the benefit of the original for comparison. this is why there are people (admittedly those with something to gain) who still claim their counterfeits are genuine. in the case of the STS proofs it's important to remember that there are two genuine versions out there - the US slick, printed on paper with border, crop marks, colour bars etc (as seen on the most recently linked to auction - see maarten's post above), and the UK promo cover, a 24 x 12 folded card wraparound (no spine, not a "sleeve" as such). any complete sleeve is either the counterfeit or a homemade custom job (as per the recent Olsen sale, also noted above)... or an EMI reissue of course.


if the original photograph negative was secured then yes. otherwise the source would have to be the proof or the EMI reissue, and there are ways to detect such a source. as you probably know colour printing (with rare exceptions) uses the CMYK four-colour method. an original photograph won't have any pixels or dots, it's a seamless image. for print that image needs to be broken down into four colours - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. combinations of varying weights of these colours create the printed version. close inspection with the naked eye can usually reveal this, especially in older CMYK print materials and early colour newspapers. if reproducing an existing print then there are problems for the printer... those dots will be reproduced again with another pattern of dots. this is why counterfeits and replicas are often softer in tone. the reason is that the image is reshot slightly out of focus to blur the original dot pattern. there is also the issue of "moire patterns", caused by the non-alignment of the two dot patterns. you'll have probably experienced this when scanning a printed image.

so, if the original negative image could be located and the colours matched then it would be quite simple in a case such as this to replicate the sleeve. the back cover would be very easy. the one area that would cause difficulty would be the colour bars as they are a '70s design and have probably been through several changes since then. also, the cost of making a CMYK printed proof like this (i.e. not a digital copy) would be high per unit due to set up costs, plate making and bribing a printer to do it for you! you'd have to make at least 100 to justify the expense and hope that the sudden appearance of 100 mint proofs on the market doesn't raise too many eyebrows.


i'd say yes for some things more than others. besides sleeves then there are usually the records to be faked too. only the most valuable records would justify the hassle and again you'd have to sell very selectively.

this looks to be the best example of the US slick to come to market. it's a shame ebay's pics are so lo-res as there's no way to know for sure without having it in your hands. BUT the seller makes "non-print" mistakes (he says it's been stored out of sunlight for almost thirty years which means it was either "exposed to sunlight for over four years" or his maths is wrong), plus he refers to the catalogue number as a matrix number, not the sign of a veteran record salesman. i suspect this one will fetch a high price unless people think the current "flurry" of proofs is reason for doubt.

i would add that even if 100 of these survived it would still be among the most collectable memorabilia out there and worthy of its RC estimate.

his b/w sleeve is the first one i've seen. less interesting of course but perhaps more so to some collectors. btw, the yellow cast you can see on this and the colour one (rectangle that covers the entire sleeve area, not the outer margins) add to the evidence that it's real... this would have been a varnish or sealant to hold the image. the black and red only colour bars are also consistent with this job. also, who in their right mind would go out of their way to fake an existing cover?

Thanks for that comprehensive answer, i've always been curious.

If a printer had access to the original negative, say for a re-issue in the case of STS, could they create a digital copy of that somehow to print from at a later date?

i.e. could it be possible for whoever created the EMI sleeve to, years later, be creating fakes without the original negative?

I'm sure designers who are given access to HQ graphics don't just discard them when they are finished with them.

I'm talking hypothetically here, as much out of interest as anything else.

Ultimately as you say, it is a huge amount of work to try and get a few hundred dollars on ebay.

I guess the easier thing to do would be create a unique fake.

The 7 inch single that was clearly made from the MWSTW poster is one gloriously inept attempt but i'm sure a pro could do a better job and just invent some Peruvian 7 inch picture sleeve that no one has ever seen before.

i don't think EMI had the negative for their reissue, but yes they could. the key is to scan at the highest resolution possible so you can reproduce at a large size (like vinyl) at a later date. it's hard to explain to people who ask for a CD cover to be designed and then, after the event, decide they want it on vinyl and wonder why designers can't "blow it up" to vinyl size. if you have the brazilian Buddha of Suburbia LP you'll see a good example of this... big dots!

you're right about one-off custom sleeves though. the possibilities are endless although there's usually something "not quite right" about faked artwork. ideally the art would be unique and not just a familiar picture scanned from a magazine. certain elements would be essential to getting it right - matching fonts to the period, the right amount of ageing etc... lithographic against digital reproduction etc etc. it would be fun for personal use but once you start to consider financial gain you're into new territory. i also think you'd have to be a real fan to get it just so and then you'd have to have zero conscience to dupe other fans...

I'll retract that. Thanks for the follow up.

ha ha... well hopefully none of them are a design whizz too.

Its wierd, i actually asked this question about counterfeits to you guys only the other day on the counterfeit topic.
With regards to this latest slick, it looks fantastic and i was tempted to "buy it now" really, but i have this horrible feeling that we might have another "Low Red vinyl"situation here where early copies sold for £500.00+ down to £15.00 once the scam was realised.
Shooky says 100 would have to be printed to make it worthwhile, based on the Low vinyl early copies, several thousand pounds would have changed hands so maybe it is worth doing.
The real shame is from my point of view i desperatley want to own one of these but wont bid on this one.
I did bid on Olsen's as i believe that was genuine but not worth that much due to its condition.
It is also strange that it is claimed by Olsen that only 4 full coulor ones exist yet there are definatley more than that which have have surfaced.
(I believe Shooky may be obtaining one soon also).
I wiil watch with interst

If you look closely at the color bar colour combinations or order at the foot of the printed material in this copy that sold for $50-00 in 2006 as pointed out earlier by Shooky:

http://www.popsike.com/David-Bowie-STAT ... 88050.html

and the if you look closely at the color bar colour combinations or order at the foot of the printed material in the copy that sold on the Feb 11th last then you will see that the coiour combinations or sequence match. Not sure if that means that much.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 518wt_1108

I feel that the copy auctioned last week seems genuine. More in a moment.