A Mark In Time

Mark Knopfler Discussion => Mark Knopfler Discussion Forum => Topic started by: dennisbrouwer on August 23, 2012, 11:17:01 AM

Title: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: dennisbrouwer on August 23, 2012, 11:17:01 AM
Found this one a few months ago on eBay. MK's signature looks real to me. What is the story behind this? Anyone? Shall we ask the Doc?
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: Love Expresso on August 23, 2012, 11:25:39 AM
Don't know who Alan Woods is? The signature right under MK's could be from Paul Cummins, Mark's DS tour manager.

LE
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: ingridswing on August 23, 2012, 11:33:26 AM
Yes, please ask Guy.
Don't know Alan Woods either  :-[

Edit: this Harris and Trotter is a company with chartered accountants. I am one myself in the netherlands but I would never sign something like this. A notary is there to legalize signatures (at least in the Netherlands). Could be different in the UK.
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: dmg on August 23, 2012, 12:31:53 PM
Just a bit of a joke surely for this Mr Woods to show his mates.  The important point in here is the exclamation mark.
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: Love Expresso on August 23, 2012, 02:43:34 PM
Guy Fletcher has commented that he cannot see anything. The link is only working when you are logged into AMIT, which he isn't obviously.

LE
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: ingridswing on August 23, 2012, 03:07:30 PM
LE: I copied it into Word and sent it by mail to GF. We will see  ;)
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: dennisbrouwer on August 23, 2012, 03:08:07 PM
Thankx Ingrid  ;D
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: ingridswing on August 23, 2012, 03:49:39 PM
Answer of Guy by mail:

I don't know what the document is but the signatures seem real.

Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: a visitor on August 23, 2012, 03:54:14 PM
Theory 1: The document is related to something else, Alan Woods got hold of it and added the funny comment. Comparing Mark's handwriting and Alan's, it's clear Mark didn't write it.
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: ingridswing on August 23, 2012, 03:57:24 PM
Theory 1: The document is related to something else, Alan Woods got hold of it and added the funny comment. Comparing Mark's handwriting and Alan's, it's clear Mark didn't write it.

Don't know Alan's handwriting but MK didn't write it anyway.
Theory 2: someone else got hand on it and wrote this comment

But one of these 2 seems to make sence to me
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: holaknopfler on August 23, 2012, 04:54:12 PM
Hmm you can clearly see that it's not Marks handwriting.. And why should he ever write that? ;D
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: dmg on August 23, 2012, 05:05:20 PM
Is it just me or does it look like woman's handwriting?  i.e. neater!
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: a visitor on August 23, 2012, 05:07:24 PM
Maybe David Knopfler wrote it?  ;D
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: dmg on August 23, 2012, 05:09:19 PM
Maybe David Knopfler wrote it?  ;D

Now you've started one! ;)
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: holaknopfler on August 23, 2012, 05:11:23 PM
Maybe David Knopfler wrote it?  ;D
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: JeroenvG on August 23, 2012, 05:12:51 PM
Looks like this Allen Woods bought a guitar from Mark and just to be sure it is the real deal he got this piece of paper to verify the realness.

Because of that Mark, or maybe Paul, made a funny comment about Allen Woods beeing a better guitarist!
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: ingridswing on August 23, 2012, 05:17:01 PM
Harris and Trotter is or was the chartered accountant of MK. I believe they are credited somewhere on a CD/DVD.

Also check this: http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-132169065/accountancy-much-wilder-than-lion-taming-accountancy

My 2 cents:
Someone from that company grabbed an official document and wrote this down on it.
If one of my employees would have done something like this he/she wouldn't have work anymore  :disbelief
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: twm on August 23, 2012, 07:39:40 PM
Here's my half-pennyworth.

Even if the MK signature is real, does the written statement above it look like MK's handwriting? I'd venture not.

I would be amazed if MK signed any blank documents and even more amazed if a manager of his (even a tour manager) did so either.

"Signed, Sealed and Deliovered" suggests it is from a legal document - originally at least.

"Certified to by a true copy" should read "Certified to be a true copy" but, even in its correct form, the phrase suggests that this is not the original document (though possbly not a photocopy of the original).

Finally, we only see the end of the document, not the whole thing.

My conjecture is that someone (Alan Woods, presumably, but maybe a friend of his) got hold of "a true copy" of some legal document involving MK's accountants, took the final section (that is, the bit between the typewritten text of the original legal agreement) and inserted the wording we see above MK's signature. I'm quite preapred to be wrong about this but the above are my thoughts.

The oddity about this document is that it seems to have been folded and sealed with wax at some point. I'm not sure about this but the only documents I've ever seen sealed with wax came from about 100 to 200 years ago, though it was a practice used earlier than that and possibly later.

I wonder if someone (possibly at the accountants) came across this document (perhaps it was put out for shredding or something), kept the end part of the document, added the phrase above the signature, folded and sealed it with waxand passed to Alan Woods as some kind of joke. Just a thought.
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: knopfling on August 23, 2012, 08:13:34 PM
Guy says it's "clearly a fake."
It doesn't look at all like MK's signature to me.
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: ingridswing on August 23, 2012, 08:45:55 PM
Answer of Guy by mail:

I don't know what the document is but the signatures seem real.



Guy mailed me this and regarding to the text that's written above it he agreed with me that maybe there's document around from an official agreement or whatever we have as chartered accountants (we have signed stuff from every kind in our files) and someone put on the last page this funny text. To make it look like it's something that had to to with Alan Wood.

He said signatures (so both) look real and I compared it to my signed iPhone and it really looks the same (only regarding MK) I don't have a signature of Paul Cummins of course.

Besides that Guy said on his forum: The statement is clearly fake and I have no idea who Alan Woods is.   
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: chris on August 24, 2012, 07:51:02 AM
In my job, I do conclude contracts every day and this seems to me to be a "tail" of a once has been "real" document. Someone cut off the contract-text above.

I mean, why should the contract-partners write the "signed, sealed & delivered...blablabla" with a type-writer and the quintessence of the document by hand? That really makes no sense.

And that's definitely not MK's handwriting.

Fake worst kind of! :disbelief
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: koobaa on August 24, 2012, 03:37:48 PM
It was most probably meant only as a joke, and as a joke it is a good one. It would definitely make me smile if I ever got such a "signed and sealed" letter from a friend :).  Somebody (maybe even Alan Woods himself) has posted it on the internet and now we are discussing it like crazy. But in my view this little piece seems contrived and is just a joke, nothing else.
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: ingridswing on August 24, 2012, 04:33:35 PM
As far as I understood someone was selling it on ebay, so trying to make profit of a fake thing  ::)
Title: Re: MK - Alan Woods
Post by: koobaa on August 24, 2012, 04:54:25 PM
That's an important detail that I missed. Never will understand people who want to make profit on something like that. And who would buy this anyway?