Collector's and buyers of famous rock and roll musical instruments may not be aware that the authenticity of many auctioned off or advertised instruments are ACTUALLY FAKE 25% of the time!
Internet searches bear out this out according to highly experienced collectors and sellers. And that high percentage of faked forgeries is small in comparison to the entire genre' of world art and antiquities. Certification papers signed by so-called experts are forged as high as 50% of the time! In fact, many museums across the world have knowingly been displaying fakes for over a hundred years!
This means tens of thousands of gullible buyers believe the fake provenance. Or, another way to descibe this fraud is unbridled counterfeiting of documentation. And these schemes are only a smokescreen to steal outlandish sums of money from zealous investors. But if the investors are HAPPY with their purchases, is there really a crime involved?
RINGO STARR'S $6.2 MILLION AUCTION
There is a hidden story simmering behind the famous auction of Ringo's drums in 2015. The roadies and technical assistants hired by Ringo embarked on a 3 year project beginning in 2012 roadie team amassed a pile of Ringo's vintage Ludwig drums and accessories from about 2012 to 2015. Ringo directed his team to search through all of his storage locations he had used at various residences (to the best of his memory). When certain drums or hardware turned up missing or damaged beyond repair, his crack roadie team combed the internet, eBay, music stores and hundreds of other resources to locate and buy suitable replacements. On the day of the Julien's Auction in 2015, major network news reporters flocked to the auction to ask Ringo questions about his famous drum sets.
One female reporter asked him specifically about the restoration project and how his team handled questions regarding several missing drums and parts. Ringo answered live on camera about how the missing or broken parts were substituted by other used drum parts - i.e., substitute drums or parts that Ringo never before played on or touched.
FRANKENSTEIN'S LABORATORY
In the end, the roadies assembled them into complete, fully working drum sets. Then.....Ringo waved his magic pen and "poof" ... al those cannibalized parts from "Frankenstein's Laboratory" were officially adopted as part of all Ringo's early drum sets. Ringo autographed lots of signed certificates of authenticity. All that cleared the way for the PR reps for Ringo to sell the public on the fact these reconditioned drum sets were "the real sets Ringo used". The legality of that definition was glossed over by the sheer "Star Power" that Ringo offered as provenance required by Julien's Auction House in Los Angeles.
It was 2008 when Scott began searching and networking all his show biz contacts to locate Ringo and his drum set. He first checked with a Beatle tribute band he used to book and manage in the 1970’s. Mark Lewis was the band's manager in Las Vegas. Mark also the keyboard player and founding member of the world's first Beatles tribute band called "Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles."
Scott was partners with Chet Actis, the owner of ICA Talent in Beverly Hills, CA. Mr. Actis and Dick Clark (from Dick Clark Productions in Beverly Hills) had already been in a 2 year booking relationship with Alan: A Tribute to Elvis in Vegas.
Scott received a return call from Mark Lewis who told him to call Don Bennett’s Drum Store in Seattle WA. That's who Ringo's roadies did business with over the years. And they might know better than anyone about where Ringo's original drum set might be stored. Eventually, Scott and one of Ringo’s three drum technicians negotiated and agreed on a price and terms for Scott to buy and pickup the drum set that Ringo allegedly used in early 1964-65.
During the purchase process, Scott didn't ask Ringo to sign anything because other well known people in his circle of friends from the music business (Los Angeles and London) were aware that Scott bought Ringo's early 1960's drum set. Scott had contacted several of them before he reached Mark Lewis with Rain. Scott has some photographs and other info pertaining to this group of Ringo acquaintances. Sadly, at least two of these witnesses of the Ringo drum set purchase have died in recent years. And now Scott's casual attitude about not wanting to press Ringo for a signed certification has come back to bite him!
Scott's reason for not getting signed paperwork by Ringo is simple: Throughout his entire 55 year career in the music and acting business, he never asked any celebrity for an autograph. He is quoted as saying, "I just don't fawn over famous celebrities. Partly out of mutual respect from one entertainer to another and partly because I never wanted to come off like some bumpkin, teeny bopper fan with a celebrity fetish."
Scott has an uncanny photographic memory about many things, and in particular, exact words from conversations and negotiations of any kind. (Scott negotiated over 8,500 contracts during his 53 year career as a talent agent and producer in the San Francisco Bay Area of CA.) He recalls that Ringo's technicians were mulling over plans to "re-issue" or invent modern clones of Ringo's famous drum set that would be enhanced in value by adding Ringo's autograph inside each of the wooden shells of the drums. This was specifically told to Scott in early 2008. But at the heavily publicized Julien's auction in 2015, Ringo and company raked in a cool 6.2 million dollars for the sale of Ringo's "first" 6 drum sets (including a white Premier set and a wood grained Ludwig set from his later career.)
None of those auctioned drums had Ringo's signature signed inside the wooden shells. Instead, they simply had pieces of paper signed by Ringo attesting to their authenticity. Nobody ever dared to question the authenticity of these other sets nor did anyone impugn the integrity of the official "provenance stories" and claims. After all, Ringo signed the necessary auction certification papers and that seemed to be enough to satisfy the auction house and bidders. Whether the details and facts are 100 percent true is not the main issue.
THE QUANDARY
It is virtually impossible to get a 100% accurate story and timetable of facts about the history of all of Ringo's drum sets. Even Ringo has contradicted his own statements he made about the his drums and purchases over the years. (Ringo is on record saying contradicting facts in interview articles all over the internet. He is on record for these vacillating facts being affected by old age and memory snafus). The owner of the Indianapolis Colts paid$ 2.2 million for what he thought was the very first drum set Ringo used on the first Ed Sullivan show appearance in February, 1964. But he didn't get the original snare drum nor did he get any of Ringo's black road cases.
In the end, Ringo and his team of technicians all earned a handsome profit from their auction in 2015 that grossed $6.2 million dollars! Ringo's personal net worth was about $500 million 10 years ago. But since tax liabilities and other negative factors have a way of eating away at anyone's fortunes, that figure has been adjusted in recent year to be only $300 million. No one will ever know which figure is closer to the correct amount.
These are the matching road cases to Ringo Starr's famous drum set sold in Julien's Auction house sale in 2015. Scott bought these cases (without the drums) in 2008. They are now for sale!
Good comparison between Scott Ebright's Ludwig BOP drum set and Ringo's drum set being used in concert. All parts are same identical parts matching Ringo's first Ludwig set.
Scott Ebright posing with Ringo's drum set.
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