Sherlock Holmes's actual autograph!

Sometimes, you just don't realize things right away.

In reviewing the Baker Street Almanac 2021 this morning, I suddenly found myself having to stop in my tracks when I was trying to figure something else out and I realized that Sherlock Holmes hand-wrote part of the Canon. My inner fanboy got all excited, maybe not to the level of discovering an authentic Holmes autograph, but still . . . Sherlock Holmes wrote the very words I was looking at, at least according to Watson and his publishers!

Sherlock Holmes drew this map, so it's his handwriting, right? Has to be!

Which is all very cool. But then I read what I just wrote and thought "Sherlock Holmes's autograph? I think all the letters needed for that are somewhere on that map, in Holmes's handwriting!" And ala the old TV Adam West Batman, when energetically announcing it was time to go down the batpoles, I had to shout, "To the Photoshop!!" and run upstairs.

Sure, there are a lot of better things I could be doing this morning. More practical things. But I am a Sherlockian with a dream. A little crude photoshoppery, and voila!

AN ACTUAL SHERLOCK HOLMES AUTOGRAPH! (Of sorts.)

Surely in the hundred year history of this hobby someone has done this before. There's some tickle in the back of my brain that says I might have read of such an attempt somewhere. But, like good old Sherlockian chronology, there's just something about doing it for yourself.

Holmes had to have better penmanship than that, didn't he? Or was he one of those celebs who is sloppier with their own signature than any normal handwriting he would do? I'm no signature expert, and would welcome further exploration into a proper Sherlock Holmes signature from those who are -- one more field of Sherlockian study to explore!