Rosa, don't listen to what these non-art people are saying.
You do indeed have the original piece there and Dan over at Grapefruit Moon Gallery is top-notch.
why the painting doesn't look quite right is most likely because the pastel has been restored at some point
a little art education: for paints, pigment is ground down to a fine powder, finer than talc, and mixed with a medium. Oils for oil paint, water based solubles for water paints and a thick oil based paste for acrylics. Pastels are the pure pigment, without a medium. But because pastels are a non-fixed medium, they are fugitive. An anti-caking powder is mixed with the pigment and they are pressed into pastel sticks. But over time, the pastel flakes off or worse, it gets touched and any touch rubs away or smudges the pastels. It also happens when pastels are poorly stored and the surfaces are in contact with other surfaces, like another painting
the problem now becomes how to restore such damage and with pastels it is nearly impossible to get a correct match because nobody does it like the original artist and if you don't have a reference to look at, you also make mistakes, like leaving out the extra line in front of the artists signature which the restorer may have thought was a smudge and the restorer also probably enhanced what they did not restore, just like poster restorers adding translucent colors to boost the finished product.
that's why the piece has some areas that are spot on, and others seem a little off and why others - such as the signature - have a ghost line.
it is the original, but it is restored. You might ask Dan if he had the restoration done and mention my name and that I said you should ask him.
If Dan had it restored, he will tell you, if he did not, he might look into it. (okay.. I read above where Jeff previously asked him about it. probably comes to Dan in it's current condition)
meanwhile, here's a pastel piece from 1940 by Rolf Armstrong.. I might mention, it's on my wall, at my office and Dan has tried to buy it...