How Every Piece Is Authenticated Before It Reaches the Shop Floor

Step one: where the piece comes from

Signatures are personally obtained or acquired through trusted and reputable collectors. Knowing who supplied a piece is the first check before examining the signature itself.

Step two: physical inspection under raking light

Each signature is examined off the wall and out of the frame wherever the backing allows. We look at ink deposit, pen pressure and the indentation left in the surface, the order in which strokes cross one another, and whether the ink has aged consistently with the photograph or shirt beneath it. A signature applied decades after the item was produced usually gives itself away in the way the two have aged apart.

• Raking light across the surface to reveal indentation and lift
• Loupe inspection for halftone dots that would indicate a preprint
• Check that ink sits in the surface texture, not flat on top of it
• Frame opened where safe, so the reverse and the backing board can be read

Step three: comparison against known exemplars

We compare against examples from the same period of the signer's life, not a single reference image. Signatures drift: a footballer signing thousands of items in the 1960s writes differently from the same man in his seventies, and illness or injury changes a hand permanently. Matching a late signature against an early exemplar is one of the most common ways honest buyers reach the wrong conclusion.

Step four: recording what is known and what is not

Anything we can evidence about the piece is written down: who it came from, when, what was said about the circumstances of signing, and any paperwork that came with it. Where the history is partial, we say so in the listing rather than filling gaps with a story. A piece described honestly as having limited documented history is worth more to a serious collector than one dressed up beyond the evidence.

Step five: the certificate and the standing behind it

Only once the above is complete does a piece get priced and listed.

Every item we sell is supplied with the WDW Certificate of Authenticity, signed by Derek Warwick and valid for as long as you own the piece.

The certificate carries a named individual and a shop address that has been in the same trade since 1973. That accountability is the point of it. Read our companion page on what a certificate proves and what it cannot, so you know exactly what you are holding.

What we do not claim

We do not run forensic ink dating, we do not employ a laboratory, and we do not issue certificates for items we have not sold. We describe our own process and stand behind our own stock. Any dealer claiming laboratory certainty on a routine signed photograph is overstating what is possible.