On February 26th, Ozzy Osbourne’s Instagram and Facebook sites released a limited offer to purchase autographed cd’s of “Ordinary Man” by the Prince of Darkness himself. This comes on the heal of Ozzy’s autograph signing he did at Omeba Records in Los Angeles on February 21st which was his first in 10 years. Fans flocked to get the opportunity to purchase the item including myself who ordered a copy.
A confirmation email was sent out stating it would take several weeks before it was shipped. Taking into consideration that Ozzy has Parkinson’s Disease, the amount of wait time was not an issue to allot time for him to sign. Here’s where things take a turn. As soon as they start to arrive, fans posted on line to show they received their copies and it was revealed that there were three variations of Ozzy’s signature on them and that they were all done with a machine known as a “auto pen”.
Fans on Facebook also had messaged Sony Music who sold the items (the company that owns Epic Records which released the cd) and their responses were that these would be and were “hand signed”. Here are two of the responses from fans who contacted Sony.
Here is a photo of the “auto pen” autographs side by side for comparison that was shown in the Facebook group ‘Autographs 247’
Before I go any further I want to state that Ozzy Osborne’s new album “Ordinary Man’ is a great album a definitely worth owning on its own merit. I will also say that I’ve met Ozzy & Sharon a couple times throughout the years and they are both incredible people. I will say that it was a poor business decision to violate the trust of Ozzy’s fans in order to bump sales of this album.
A fan the goes by “TheConcertCruizer” on YouTube shows his disappointment by making a statement about receiving a fake autographed copy of the cd.
The only offer the Sony Music has made is a refund which does not effect the overall “Billboard” standing of the album.
Sadly Ozzy or Sharon have not made any statements about the situation which leaves fans that much more disappointed.
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