As I had said, Matt stated to me, that he knew nothing of the sale of this chair, which goes directly against what PiH stated in their auction. And, he seemed pretty lucid to me at the time. I have seen several auctions from PiH that I had my doubts about, considering that most of the replica junk that went into 'Planet Hollywood' allegedly came from them. AND Planet Hollywood maintained that all of their displays were original, including the Enterprise-A in Vegas that I know Greg Jein had made for them! He had told me how he got in trouble with 'the Mount' because of making copies, that one specifically.
What Planet Hollywood does is irrelevant when discussing PiH--or would you want your own actions to be judged based on what others do? As for you stating that Matt Jefferies didn't know anything about the chair PiH stated he authenticated, basically what you're doing is implying that
PiH outright lied about a piece and stated it had
specific authentication from a
specific individual which it did not. So please, let's not be covert about it: is that what you are alleging here?
As for your story, where is your proof that you talked with Matt Jefferies about the chair? I'm guessing you have none. Where is your proof that he denied authenticating it? I'm guessing you have none. Since the poor man was probably close to his death at the time, even if we take the above for granted and assume you're telling the truth (an assumption which you're unwilling to extend to PiH, so why should we extend it to you?), how can we assume he was more lucid and aware and mentally competent at that moment than he was when asked by PiH to authenticate the chair?
All you're offering here is a standard conspiracy theory, sans proof of any sort. Why would we believe that PiH was outright lying, but that you are telling the truth? Occam's razor, my friend.
As for PiH, we all know that they've sold some forged and misattributed items in the past--
every auction company has. These represent a tiny fraction of the literally
many tens of thousands of items which they've probably sold since the captain's chair. I don't have any figures, but based on the sheer volume of artifacts they've handled in the last decade or so forgeries are doubtless less than 1% of what they've handled. As someone who's consigned items to PiH and other major houses in the past, I can tell you that PiH's authentication process is as thorough as anyone's in the business. They don't want to sell fakes--no one does, because it harms buyer confidence--but every auction house gets fooled occasionally. That's life: nobody is perfect, and the bad guys sometimes win.
As for the captain's chair specifically: beyond standard conspiracy theory stuff lacking all proof, we have no reason to believe it's anything other than authentic. Unless you can provide proof that PiH is lying about what specific individuals say, we know that the item (or pictures and information about it) was examined by Matt Jefferies, Bob Justman, and Herb Solow, and deemed by them authentic (documentation of this would have been given to the auction winner by PiH, so why would they lie knowing the winner would expect documentation for these claims?). We know that the Technical Operations Director of CBS Television City states that he and a friend removed this item from the set after production wrapped. We know without a doubt that at least the Madison chair at the heart of the item is unquestionably authentic, because the woodgrain matches high-res publicity photos. We know that the materials and construction of the rest of the chair are consistent with the period and with studio construction standards. And IMHO even the panel alterations speak to the authenticity of the item because if you're capable of faking the rest so well, why not just fake the complete chair instead of stating that panels were missing and what was still present was reinstalled by the owner? Are you telling me that in 30+ years the owner couldn't source or fabricate the right parts to complete such an expert forgery, if that's what everything but the Madison is? With the balance of all of that evidence, we have every reason to believe the item is authentic.
Now, let's look at the counterbalancing scale: what evidence is there of the chair's
inauthenticity? We have...vague stories from third parties that someone somewhere whose identity we don't know claims he saw the chair dismantled 30+ years ago. Very good evidence, that. We have a claim with no corroboration at all that Matt Jefferies didn't know anything about the sale of the chair he was said to have authenticated--and even if we accept that that claim is true, which without evidence we should not, then we know Jefferies was 80+ years old and near death so why can he be counted on to remember anything about it? And even if we discount Jefferies' authentication, we still have all the other evidence outlined in the previous paragraph.
Basically we're left with evidence of authenticity vs. a proofless conspiracy theory of inauthenticity. I sure know which side of the scale I think weighs more...