A blind dealer in Third Reich militaria claims that paintings by Adolf Hitler, which are being offered at a Cornish auction, are fake.
Mikey Hughes, of Mikey Hughes Militaria, argues that the 21 watercolours and sketches by the Third Reich leader are not authentic and that the best thing the auctioneers can do is “pull the auction”. He said: “I wouldn’t even put these so called ‘Hitler’ pictures on my kitchen fridge.”
Suffering from Stickler Syndrome, Mikey fully lost his sight in 1998 but continued to collect and deal artefacts from the Third Reich. He says the paintings, which will be auctioned on 26 September at Jeffery’s auction house, do not comply with the “4 S’s” of authenticity – science, style, signature and source.
After personally speaking to the auctioneer, Ian Morris, Mikey said: “Ian could not explain why the signatures on the paintings, apparently painted within a short space of time, were mostly all different.”
He continued: “Being blind I got somebody to write the signatures from the Jeffery’s paintings on a bit of paper, with my hand gently leaning over theirs. I then got them to write the signatures from paintings that were original and even using this basic technique the differences were immediately apparent.”
Ian also admitted that the last tests carried out to establish the age of the paintings were in 1986 in Belgium suggesting the invalidity of the age assessment, said Mikey.
Understandably the source of the paintings is undisclosed to the public, but Mikey points out that the “Hitler diaries” of the 1980s were also from a secret source, which turned out to be Stuttgart-based forger “Connie Fischer”.
Mikey has been collecting militaria for about 16 years and although he advises collectors to avoid buying the paintings offered at Jeffery’s, he defends the sale of Third Reich collectibles and original Hitler art.
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