08 Feb 1975 - Cleveland, OH, USA (Was it professionally recorded?)

Wow! That is a pretty significant previously unknown source you found there! It really adds considerably to understanding how the band and management were thinking at the time. It sounds like they were hoping that the way they used radio broadcasts in the UK could be transplanted to the US.

Thanks for sharing this info!

Guys, take ANYTHING in these documents with a grain of salt please.

Firstly, I also have documents / contracts from 1975 and as far as I'm aware, Queen did not sign the contracts for every single shows themselves. Agents (International Creative Management, NY in 1975) made all arrangements with the promotors and negotiated contracts on the bands behalf. Like for example Howard Rose's firm late 70's and 80's did which is a more well known example.

Secondly, I strongly believe this whole document is forged. I'm no autograph expert but these are not '75 autographs, just look at Brian's 'B' compared to known original early examples and who the F is 'Ray Tyl--'... Another good point to go from is the pass, which features an image of the band taken later in '75 well after this tour.

Just my 2 cents.

Yes, a good and healthy conversation is always good. I see if I can add to my contribution by going in to it a bit further.

I nearly bought this lot for the pass (it was on eBay a few times before the NateD auction - or might have been a 2nd copy even, I don't know) since I more or less only collect those these days.

Was already suspicious about it because I have a few '75 passes including one from Belkin and know of 3 Belkin '75 passes in Brian's personal collection (2 of which are most likely from the 2 shows done on this day - though the date/writing is completely faded off). All basic satin passes - now this doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't have a special laminate of course, I'm aware of that.

Then Ferdinando (Frega - queenmuseum.com) pointed out the fact of the picture (he dates it from the NATO promotional sessions era) and that part became obvious and he then immediately pointed to the signatures as being fake as well (in his opinion, which I trust more than my own, as mentioned above).

After I came down from my initial high of 'finding' this, then started digging further and comparing and I personally believe it's just a load of rubbish - maybe based on some genuine contract this forger found somewhere, probably from a totally different band or something.

For example, the contract I had (Kiel Auditorium '75 - cancelled show) is just between the agent (I.C.M.) and Festival East (the local promotor) and details everything... Fees, rough rider, etc The format is also completely different and (judging by another one from '74 and one from '78) is quite standardized by itself. Totally different than the one shown here in this auction.

I have a strong suspicion Freddie`s signature is fake also. It does not look right. If you check on the web for comparison sigs the two `dd` are wrong and I can`t find any with the last `e` missing. And that is just his first name. I may be wrong as it is my opinion, but a little checking does help with authenticity. I collect astronaut autographs and you see a lot of forgeries, some good, some bad.

The band were in their 20s and may not have settled into standard signatures, nor were they signing a ton of paperwork or autographs at this point.

This was auctioned off after the promoter died - a promoter who oversaw plenty of similar arrangements with other artists. There's little reason to think this is a fake.

Ok, historian talking here. You see lots of handwriting- and autograph experts on TV. They make it look like a hard science - it isn't. Even in an age where autographed documents were the norm and good, consistent handwriting was an essential skill (say, mid-19th to mid-20th century), you can see that there are (sometimes extreme) variations in the way incontrovertibly authentic signatures from the same person look, even in the same time frame. Also, bear in mind that autographing a poster or an LP and signing a business document are entirely different things - usually, a lot more care will be put into the former.

You cannot, absolutely cannot, tell whether a document like this is authentic on the basis of the look of a signature on a photograph of the document.

I appreciate everyone chipping in and helping to resolve this.

I think the takeaways from this thread are to be a little nicer to one another and that we have some good contributions from forum members which basically tells us that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is!