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My Fake Picasso Went to Auction at $1.4 Million - YouTube
Channel: VICE
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this is just a little storeroom so
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you've got a caravaggio
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six and a half foot basket there's
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another emoji there only there
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oh is this a picasso i mean i do
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picassos sometimes i can do two or three
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in a day before breakfast you know
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because they're
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they're not that difficult and i gave
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one to a friend of mine he sold it
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someone bought it and they took it to
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the auction
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and they valued a million
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[Music]
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forgery is one of the greatest
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challenges the art world faces today
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with fakes and misattributions estimated
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to be as high as 50
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of all works in the art market sold 6
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million too
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to combat this there has sprung a
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multi-billion dollar industry of
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authentication services
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however away from the premier arts
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circuit there is a blind spot where
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forgeries get through with ease
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i'm on my way to meet david henty and
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billy the brush mumford
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two convicted forgers who have made
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thousands selling their fakes on ebay
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the two lads like to go to this car boot
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sale to find historical materials
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appropriate to whatever they're forging
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although they claim to have hung up
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their forgery boots they're going to
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show me how they would fake painting
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then i'm going to take that painting to
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one of london's premier authentication
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services to see if they can clock it's a
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fake
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greek philly sydney hiya
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how you doing hi how are you doing hi
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philly nice to meet you
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take me through this license plate van
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gogh's
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i've got i've got i've got van gogh as
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well
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yeah and i've got all the van gogh
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options yeah yeah
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well i'm also i'm just buying one then
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for 63r
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forger what have you got here
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philly's got a load of catalogs so i'm
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going to be looking through these later
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on this afternoon
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and thinking oh if i get little canvas
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like that you know i'll stick something
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on
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you know you get some good ideas for me
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we're going to go down to the market now
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but
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just before that um unfortunately i
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served uh
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some time in a prison about two or three
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minutes away
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so we might go via there
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before billy was caught under the
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police's operations sketch
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and sentenced to two years he had forged
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one thousand pieces that had made their
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way across the globe
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detectives have only managed to find 40
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so far meaning there's a lot still in
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circulation
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so how did you get into art forgery well
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i was dismissed from
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st martin's in 1968 it was something to
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do with
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me being intoxicated in a life
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drawing class it was the either get a
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job
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or um use what limited artistic skills i
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had and that's the road i went down
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do you still uh forge art no
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not at all wouldn't touch you with a
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barge pole do you do any art
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um yeah i doodle sometimes yeah do they
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look any similar to any other pieces of
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art
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sometimes sometimes yeah so have you
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served any time for art forgery
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i serve time for forgery forging
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passports
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right i went into the um the prison art
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department before i just go in there
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read about art and learn about it
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but the teachers there said no you've
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got to actually paint when i came out
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i thought this is what i want to do but
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it's very difficult to sell your own
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work
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but then i painted a lovely little paul
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henry irish
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artist i put it on i've got a thousand
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pounds and i was getting
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i'm gonna say too much because i've
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straightened the tax man out now i had
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the criminal tax
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investigation because i was making so
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much money there we better go billy okay
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we better go we're gonna miss all the
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old canvases you certainly are
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what's your favorite thing about the art
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world oh the money mark rothko
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a wonderful american abstract painter
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said that to be an artist you have to
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steal
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a space on a rich man's wall and i love
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that
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i don't forge famous
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artists per se i do the one that they
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could have painted
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when i used to do ebay and stuff like
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that there was a caveat saying
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there's no paperwork or provenance with
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this painting so sold in the style of
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after the artist that way you're covered
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by law you could go to the auction and
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put it in
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and not say anything and if they go yes
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then it goes through
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you know and billy and i get all the the
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art catalogs and quite often you'll open
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it up and you'll see
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so do you think uh auction houses kind
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of profit off not asking questions
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yeah yeah yeah i mean if they can turn a
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blind eye
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they want it to be right because if it
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isn't right
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they ain't going to earn a dime so how
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would we go about
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finding the tools if you want to get it
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past the forensics
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you have to use um age-appropriate
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materials that's one for you isn't it
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yeah yeah this is it does it have a look
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yes
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yep thanks yeah windsor and newton it's
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an old one
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about 1910 1915 perfect perfect for a
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little uh
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little painting i could do a larry on
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there yeah it's good it's like an early
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lower yeah how much are they
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these are old ledgers look at that one
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of larry's um things that he did he'd
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drawn any of it you know any letters in
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his pocket and envelopes and stuff they
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turn up every now and again
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and if they're from the 50s or 60s and
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they've got a good chance of being a
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lowry drawing
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that was a good buy mate i should do a
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little masterpiece from here later
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oh and sweet home
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[Music]
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the whole purpose of coming here is for
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david to have a look at some frames
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how much of this billy nice selection
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david let's get them out before we talk
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dave i cannot talk money in the door in
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case i
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faint at the price says rusty nails
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where did they get like that with a
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saltwater aspect
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why would anyone want rusty nails
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pitched the hell out of me
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i think it's time passenger time really
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i i don't think it's a chemical process
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no don't lump them all together though
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they're individual prices david
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individual price this one beautiful 90
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quid
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you're adding it up 70 quid what first
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year
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this one and a quarter don't
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this one here for my friend as a gift
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nothing
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gornish that's nice yeah that's a little
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italian paint in there are you in these
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on
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yeah good what's that 375. yeah i
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thought yeah
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40 quid 23 mazda
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pleasure to meet you all i wish i could
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say it was a pleasure
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to me come here you schmuck
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[Music]
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should i take in these ones in here yeah
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if you wouldn't mind
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i've got to be so careful with that god
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just don't say that hello
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oh come on rook rocky
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oh wow yeah this is insane
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this is just a little storeroom with
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some my uh
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paintings in there so you've got
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caravaggio caravaggio
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i think there's another one oh there's
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caravaggio there as well salvador mandy
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who went for the most money ever at
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auction
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it did 450 million yeah six and a half
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foot basket
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you could take that and do the forensics
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on it yeah and it would come back
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as genuine really yeah there's another
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emoji gliani there
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basket how often are you doing these
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paintings
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every day i get up every day and then i
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work seven days a week just
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because i really enjoy it oh is this a
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picasso i mean i do picassos you know
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sometimes i can do two or three in a day
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you know they're not that difficult and
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i gave one to a friend of mine he sold
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it
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someone bought it and they took it to
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the auction and they valued a million
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they had quite a lot of interest in it
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but um came out in the papers that
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this forger said it's his the guy who
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owned it started them threatening
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and he told um a friend of mine that
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goes in there that
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buys stuff you know tell him i'm going
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to get someone to burn his house down
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i'll put
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your house my house here put a uh
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firebomb
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for the letterbox so i reported it to
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the police and i've got all cameras put
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up in the front of my house and stuff i
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just said
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on twitter i said do due diligence you
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know if you're selling a million pound
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painting
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get it authenticated itself and was all
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the tv cameras were there and uh
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the news channels and i said it flopped
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i think they said they sold it for 8
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000.
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amazing quite a view yeah yeah it's good
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did you often work out here yeah if i
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can
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i love to work out here just because
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it's uh yeah it's nice it's peaceful you
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know and i painted a little seascape
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so how much like have you studied larry
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then to to understand how he paints like
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down to a tee so i've been to his
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the lowry gallery um i bought
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every book i can find um about lowry
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when you've stepped in their shoes you
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understand a bit more than uh
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than an academic you're actually living
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it but this one i'm making up
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oh so i'll put a bit of sky so it could
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be like a lost lowry that's just ended
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up at auction
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well it might well do do you think
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they're like any problems
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with art forgery well i think there's a
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lot of problems with uh
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people making money off of dead eyes
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you know and that didn't make any money
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in their own lifetimes you know there's
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more of a problem with that with a
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thought you know you're an
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ordinary girl you love picasso or you
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love mo diglia
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you haven't got 5 million or 10 million
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or 100 million but i still want to paint
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him
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i don't want to print a lifeless print
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so
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you know is that wrong i think the basic
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thing is
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i don't i don't care about the money i
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love the art when i go to bed at night i
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can't wake you up in the morning if i'm
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working on
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you know something i really really like
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you're in your own world
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basically if i was a multi-millionaire
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i'd still get up in the morning and
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paint pictures obviously technology's
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advanced do you think that makes it
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harder to make
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good forged forgeries no no no no
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i think you can beat the uh the
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forensics and the rest is about good
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craftsmanship really so what do you
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think
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well passable
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[Laughter]
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okay well give me a call when it's ready
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and i'll take it to the lab okay
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and i'll let you know how it goes as
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long as we get half something okay
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so i dropped off david hensey's lowry
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the other day and they're going to run a
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few tests so
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fingers crossed for david
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hello i'm sydney
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there it is here it is so here's the
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lowry um
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basically dismantled in taking it out of
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its frame
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the tape's still quite sticky which
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means it wasn't on there for a long time
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taking the painting out he's clearly
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used one of these
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old notebooks 1955 so no question about
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it this
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is old this isn't particularly
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impressive now
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we're going to take that and have a look
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down the microscope straight away we can
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see that it's
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it's very yellow looking and this is
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typical of forgeries because
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you want the object to look old and if
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you just paint it in nice fresh bright
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colors
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it's going to look new there's no
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obvious cracking
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and yes we've got an
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obvious fake patina you see it right
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away
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we did find what we think is a pet hair
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they have tea dogs
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old master artists we're really careful
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about their materials
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and you don't find dog hairs so now that
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we've um
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with our tiny scalpel taking our tiny
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samples
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we're going to take them to the lab and
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see what we've got
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hi we brought a stub with some samples
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from the lowry painting
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so what's this machine it's actually one
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of our best tools for looking for
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forgeries
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it does the best job of anything in this
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room for looking for modern 21st century
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pigments
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is there any way that anyone could trick
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these machines
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no so now we'll go have a quick look at
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our
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imaging room where we'll be taking an
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x-ray as well as the lowry
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the way this works is the the painting's
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placed in the chassis
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and then the camera moves so it's like
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google earth you get lots of little tiny
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images
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that are then put together in a computer
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and you can zoom in and zoom out it's
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like having a microscope without a
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microscope
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so one of the most famous quotes which
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is actually on david hunty's website
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is i am a simple man and i use simple
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materials ivory black vermillion
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prussian blue yellow ochre
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flake white and no medium however we
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found
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cadmium red instead of vermilion we're
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accumulating evidence
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and the evidence it's not looking good
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it's not pointing in the right direction
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here's our x-ray of the lowry as you can
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see
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it's kind of not very
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controlled looking strokes and looking
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at other lowries
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um we see that there's kind of a
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control so david was often selling heat
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on ebay do you think
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that means that there's a bit of a blind
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spot for getting these kind of lowries
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through
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yeah i mean it's for all sorts of things
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people love to make discoveries
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but it's really buyer beware if you're
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not an expert
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if you're getting a bargain it's
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probably not a bargain
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i think for the market he's shooting at
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for doing something to sell on ebay
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he's going to fool the average punter
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who's not an expert but
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copying things for profit that's
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deception and that's where it becomes a
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criminal act
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forgers will speak about channeling you
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know the the dead artist as if it was
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some sort of psychic gift they had
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which is all hugely dodgy it's just
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justification for profiting on someone
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else's genius
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so it's david henty fears he he's not an
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artist he's a criminal
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yeah basically um and he's a
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bit overrating himself to say judge is
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the best
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copyist in the world okay won't let him
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know
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hi david how are you it's sydney
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hi hey i'm good i just left art analysis
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i think it went well oh really well
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we sound surprised there's one problem
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with like the paint the type of white
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paint and there was the vermilion
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apparently the vermilion was wrong
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i didn't know that i didn't think they'd
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pick up on it i mean i didn't do it
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to fool anyone really no of course not
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david
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[Laughter]
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there's literally no way you could have
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got past her
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honestly yeah there's enough no way
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bye david oh he's so sweet
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i thought he was going to get a bit
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miffed but um that's easy i've
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encouraged him
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to keep keeping
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[Music]
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you
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