Phony Rock Star Photos Have Collectors Singing the Blues

Dec. 15, 2009 — -- Barry Stevens has learned to appreciate the country bands that play at Coyote Joe's club in Charlotte, N.C., where he is a bartender. That's how he got started collecting autographed memorabilia.

"We would get autographed pictures of the people who would come play in our clubs," said Stevens. "I guess I'm addicted to collecting stuff."

In March 2009, Stevens added a prize piece to his collection, a guitar autographed by former members of the classic rock band Led Zeppelin: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.

"To me, the coolest thing that I could own or anybody could own would be a guitar signed by someone who you really love," said Stevens.

He paid $2,750. But Stevens said the pride of his collection turned out to be a pain.

He bought the guitar from American Royal Arts (ARA). The company is well established, it has been around for 23 years. It has galleries in Florida locations in Delray Beach, Naples, Sarasota, Fort Lauderdale and Key West. It advertises in Rolling Stone, Money and Forbes. It has a glossy catalog and a glitzy Web site.

ARA also has an A-plus rating from the Better Business Bureau. Company president Jerry Gladstone said every signed piece the company sells is authenticated by a forensic examiner.

Even so, Stevens wanted to be sure the signatures were authentic.

"My worst fear of collecting would [be to] have one piece on my wall that's not real," he said. "You're sitting admiring it for the rest of your life and it's not real. ... It's a fake."

But ARA was offering amazing, reassuring and indisputable evidence of the authenticity of the signatures on the Led Zeppelin guitar and a number of other guitars it was selling: photographs of the stars supposedly actually signing the guitars.

A photograph on the site documented Robert Plant signing a guitar; Don Henley signing a guitar autographed by the Eagles; Bono and the Edge singing a U2 guitar; Axl Rose; even a smiling Miley Cyrus, of "Hannah Montana" fame, putting her name and a little smiley-face on a purple Disney guitar. The photographs seemed to be worth a thousand words, if not as many dollars.

"They had a picture of each person signing the guitar that they're selling," said Stevens. "That's why I bought that guitar."

But as it turns out, there was less to some of those photos than meets the eye.