Ninth Gate, trying to find high res scan of the true last engraving

I think this is the one you're after.
Out of the blue, I get a notification from a friend on this forum that Hagen Shea Miller I.e. "Flattery" has reappeared on this forum after many years.

For those of you who are unaware, Hagen is a scammer who "made and sold" the Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows book replicas. In my case, he took my deposit of $233.00 in Jan. 2015, sent progress pics, and promptly disappeared after the PayPal dispute window closed never to be heard from again... until a couple days ago. Others have had bad experiences and his name is known in the bookbinding community. Paul Tronson, a bookbinder who did many inspired renditions of the book, had to threaten legal action on more than one occasion to close one of Hagen's sites, since it contained plagiarized work and content of his verbatim. Here's an excerpt from Hagen's response to remove the content.

"I am truly sorry, I didn't realize that I had copied so much. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I've spent many hours searching your site, so evidently I committed things to memory. A quick search proves it, and my head was in my hands. I just didn't realize it..."

"...Your work is yours, and I am but an inspired amateur."

"I am willing to either correct or completely remove the entire site. It's a free site, I haven't much investment in it. What would be your preference? I have no attachment to the content or presentation, if you'd like me to re-write the entries properly or simply remove it, I have no compunction acting either way. What I've done already is removed the content that you pointed out to me. If this is not to your satisfaction, please let me know, because I will gladly alter/remove anything or everything else. If the blog site is to remain, please note that I may need some time to re-examine your site so that I know to which posts of yours I would need to create hyperlinks."


Also, I was in contact with Francisco Sole' during that time who gave me his authentic 9th engraving (which was difficult to find) for this replica and was interested in seeing a reproduction using the period techniques of binding. He, too, was disappointed with the outcome.

Finally, if Hagen considers this to be "tortious interference" in his "business", I would be happy to provide my firm info. for service.

So, this is "Flattery."

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P.S. yesitis808 - He didn't give you the correct/authentic 9th engraving...big surprise!
 
Wow, didn't know any of that. that is one reason I'm hesitant to buy any replicas, I've been scammed on ebay recently

I know it's not the "real" one, but it's close enough for me (that is, unless you have the real one, lol). It's a very good replica and looks good printed out.
 
Out of the blue, I get a notification from a friend on this forum that Hagen Shea Miller I.e. "Flattery" has reappeared on this forum after many years.

For those of you who are unaware, Hagen is a scammer who "made and sold" the Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows book replicas. In my case, he took my deposit of $233.00 in Jan. 2015, sent progress pics, and promptly disappeared after the PayPal dispute window closed never to be heard from again... until a couple days ago. Others have had bad experiences and his name is known in the bookbinding community. Paul Tronson, a bookbinder who did many inspired renditions of the book, had to threaten legal action on more than one occasion to close one of Hagen's sites, since it contained plagiarized work and content of his verbatim. Here's an excerpt from Hagen's response to remove the content.

"I am truly sorry, I didn't realize that I had copied so much. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I've spent many hours searching your site, so evidently I committed things to memory. A quick search proves it, and my head was in my hands. I just didn't realize it..."

"...Your work is yours, and I am but an inspired amateur."

"I am willing to either correct or completely remove the entire site. It's a free site, I haven't much investment in it. What would be your preference? I have no attachment to the content or presentation, if you'd like me to re-write the entries properly or simply remove it, I have no compunction acting either way. What I've done already is removed the content that you pointed out to me. If this is not to your satisfaction, please let me know, because I will gladly alter/remove anything or everything else. If the blog site is to remain, please note that I may need some time to re-examine your site so that I know to which posts of yours I would need to create hyperlinks."


Also, I was in contact with Francisco Sole' during that time who gave me his authentic 9th engraving (which was difficult to find) for this replica and was interested in seeing a reproduction using the period techniques of binding. He, too, was disappointed with the outcome.

Finally, if Hagen considers this to be "tortious interference" in his "business", I would be happy to provide my firm info. for service.

So, this is "Flattery."

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P.S. yesitis808 - He didn't give you the correct/authentic 9th engraving...big surprise!
I knew he was a Grifter but didn’t know the story why Paul didn’t like him . Copying his work is despicable what a dirty rat . Look at those old threads he’s on here acting like he’s a world class book binder what a sack of **** . Hey flattery pay the guy his money you Grifter its only 233 for you to get some of your pathetic character back.
 
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Apologies to yesitis08 for overwhelming this thread...But, I would like to provide an update to my previous post detailing my experience with Hagen. Hagen did, in fact, refund $238.00 to my PP account. This was his message to me:

"To where should I send your money from long ago?

I'll spare you a long drawn out thing. I was assured when I did my taxes and account reconciliation that year that everything was taken care of, but clearly not. I can PayPal you right now or send a check from Edward Jones. I also am very apologetic. Let's get this straightened out soon as we can and put this old problem to rest."


I responded:

"I just logged in a few moments to read all of these new notifications/messages. And, I checked Paypal and did see a repayment of $238.00. With the receipt of this Paypal refund, I consider this debt to me resolved.

While I'm glad that fiduciary responsibilities of this transaction have been resolved, I can't say in good faith that the ramifications of this experience aren't still lasting and didn't leave a bad taste. Despite the 7 1/2 years that have passed, I can appreciate that you did take responsibility to make this as "right" as possible.

Finally, and since this is in interest of the members of this forum (including the owner), I wish to post your PM openly on the thread in which this issue arose."


It is now up to Hagen to expand any further if he so wishes. I'm glad that this is over and thankful to the owner and members of this forum for providing a platform to facilitate this closure.
 
Wow, didn't know any of that. that is one reason I'm hesitant to buy any replicas, I've been scammed on ebay recently

I know it's not the "real" one, but it's close enough for me (that is, unless you have the real one, lol). It's a very good replica and looks good printed out.
Sorry to hear about your experience...it's a tough pill to swallow!

I know that I have the authentic 9th engraving on a HD somewhere and will take a look. Also, I'll look through msg's with Mr. Sole to check if he requested me not to share it. I don't think he did, but I'll always respect any agreements that I've made.
 
I'm glad you posted this, James - thank you.

Any expansion on my part is probably uninteresting and mostly irrelevant. Out of the many copies I made and sold, yours was the only odd one out and became a 7.5 year oversight due to ... well shall we say life falling apart in the worst possible ways.

Something, I'll call it a whim, made me log in here the other day and a lot of things started coming back. As soon as this issue was raised here again I knew I had to act on it immediately.

I don't have the dexterity for books anymore (major blow to the back of the head years ago), but I can build model kits, so I think that's what got me to come here and look around.

As I said in my PM, I know this is really nothing in terms of remuneration, but I for one feel very good that it is finally settled in some way.
 
Sorry to hear about your experience...it's a tough pill to swallow!

I know that I have the authentic 9th engraving on a HD somewhere and will take a look. Also, I'll look through msg's with Mr. Sole to check if he requested me not to share it. I don't think he did, but I'll always respect any agreements that I've made.
Glad you got your money back, what an eventful thread this has been!
Awesome, got my fingers crossed. Another user, not named just in case, PM'd me and said they had it but couldn't send it because they had an NDA with Mr. Sole. Which is understandable.
 
Glad you got your money back, what an eventful thread this has been!
Awesome, got my fingers crossed. Another user, not named just in case, PM'd me and said they had it but couldn't send it because they had an NDA with Mr. Sole. Which is understandable.
Yeah understandable. I was only ever able to get a "close enough."
 
Hi, I'm new. This is my first post, in fact. I have a copy of the authentic ninth from Mr. Solé. He just asked if I was going to use it for commercial purposes before giving it to me so he'd know whether he'd need to charge me for it. If you're just wanting it for personal use, I don't think there'd be a problem sending it to you, at least from that angle. Is that allowed on here, though? Am I allowed to send it to someone without posting it?
 

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