The listing has been removed after several people complained, but I’m posting this image in case it surfaces again: A vendor on EBay listed a rather elaborately faked pinup photo, purportedly of Elizabeth Short. And, no, it’s not her.

What makes the fraud unusual is that someone went to great lengths to fake the back of the photo with caption information. 

This photo is ostensibly from an institution called “The Art Museum,” and good luck Googling that. The correct term is “deaccessioned” rather than “discarded,” a description that is generally limited to old library books. A photographer named Robert LaSalle? The One Star Publishing Co.? All apparently fictional.

The fake old caption is this:

Notice that although it was apparently written with a typewriter, it is “justified,” which is tricky to do with a typewriter and much easier to do with computer software.

For comparison, an authentic squib usually looks like this. Notice the ancient adhesive tape, the inventory number and the unjustified type.

And nothing to identify photographer Robert LaSalle, The Art Museum or One Star Publishing Co. Just some words scraped off the Internet.