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Kirby, Philipp, Amanda, Donnie and so many others,
Lucky me, a computer glitch kept me away from the keyboard for almost 24
hours while the firestorm over the weasely little teenage boys and girls who
only buy $10 posters vs. The stinkin' rich effete poster snobs raged on. Reading
all of it after the fact was a kick. If I'd been in real time I would
have surely jumped in with both feet in my mouth. Fate saved you from
that event, so here is my recap:
As usual, Scott put it all in perspective and I wholeheartedly back his
call from some of the old-timers to stop spending all their time counting their
money and start posting to MOPO again... um, but Scott put it better than that.
:)
I also need to say to Kirby that when I said "throw away" $46,000 on a
piece of 69-year old paper I was speaking subjectively and personally. To me,
paying that kind of money for any poster is throwing it away. Even if I had a
million in liquid cash and securities on hand, I would still consider spending
almost 5 percent of it on a 1935 lobby card... a lobby card, mind
you... to be wasteful. But I will also admit that I myself have thrown away
money on posters before (nothing like that amount, but still enough that later I
said to myself: "Self, what the f**k were you thinking? Throwing away that kind
of money on a flamin' poster?!"). It is clear to see that to a couple of other
people, the almost 50 grand was worth it even if I, with my puny teenage worm
brain, can't fathom the logic.
I wasn't really being judgmental, though, because the last time we talked
about someone paying a huge price for a poster I did that, talking
about how no poster was worth a child's college education and going on about
starving children in America. Then I discovered later by accident the
identity of the person who bought that poster. Turns out this person *is* a
real collector and just wanted it that bad -- and in fact this
person *does* have a child's college education to pay for and I know this
person to be a generous, giving person who I'm certain has already donated
far more to charity than I ever have. This person was
merely human, another one of us addicts who just wanted that poster
bad and so paid an astronomical sum for it. Does this mean that I no
longer think that person was nuts for doing so? No... sorry... I
still think it was pretty crazy, but my judgmental opinion on the true nature of
that transaction was way off, so I'm not going to go that route again. Turns
out you just never know.
It's always said that in the end what something is worth is relative
to each individual. True enough. But in this case I have to wonder about
something -- when Dr. V points out that previously this card went for
$10,000 via one of Bruce's auctions not too long ago... and had been trading in
the $2,000 to $3,000 range before that... well, the sudden
jump-up-out-of-the-blue to $46,000 just smacks of investment speculators to me,
not movie poster collectors. Now I don't know who bought it... I'm just guessing
here and could be very wrong... but if it were a movie poster collector who just
"had to have it" -- then why the heck didn't that person go ahead and buy it a
little while ago when they could have picked it up for a much more reasonable
amount of money? Why wait until Heritage is selling it and pay almost 5 TIMES
the previously-established value? No, I think it is much more likely it was a
couple of investors/speculators with very deep pockets who regard these
type of purchases as an "investment" much like buying stocks or bonds who bid it
up so high above any previous sale. Heck, in the stock market, plonking
down $40,000 or $50,000 on a stock is no big deal. It happens thousands of
times every day.
I do hope whomever bought it does appreciate it for what it is and will
archivally frame it and display it so it can be enjoyed, and not simply stick it
in a vault with the other important papers.
I also hope that they realize that by paying roughly five times the market
value that what they have done is similar to buying Netscape stock at $125...
something many skilled professional investors lived to regret. They may have to
sit on this particular investment a long time before then can turn a profit on
it. This is the problem when investment speculators move into a hobby -- they
make the mistake of it is like the stock market (or the real estate market) as
far as liquidity and turnover and psychological momentum go -- and it just ain't
so, although there are similarities.
But maybe it was someone who really wanted it primarily as a poster and not
as an investment and they just never had the money before now. Maybe they just
won the lotto or got their inheritance? If so, I would hope they have now got it
out of their system and will relax, get a good financial advisor, and stay away
from pricey live auction venues for a while. The 15% buyer's premium alone
on $46,000 was $6,900 (!) Who knows what shipping, handling and insurance will
run? Maybe $8 bucks?
Anyway, I'm pretty sure Philipp was (mostly) joking about the teenage
poster worms and only looking to tickle some posts out of us, and it sure
worked.
I personally don't think these kind of speculation-driven "record prices"
are "good for the hobby" as a whole. I think that we are in real danger of
having happen to movie posters what happened to comic books, and the nightmare
of everything good being priced out of reach of all but 1 or 2 percent of the
population and being encapsulated in plastic and hidden away in vaults is
something that would not be good for most of us movie posters collectors, real
or fake. It certainly wasn't all that great for comic book collectors as a
whole.
I'm sure most full-time dealers disagree with me, but they're seeing dollar
signs flashing. However, I have yet to see the sky-high record-breaking prices
on "tagged blue-chip investment-grade items" serve to drive the prices
of most other posters up. Unlike the stock market, it's not a tide and it
doesn't raise all boats (or even most of them). What has happened in this case
is that when an investor seeks out professional advice on buying movie posters,
they are promptly told "buy any original Universal horror paper you can find, no
matter what the price. You can't go wrong". This seem like obvious and even good
advice, but in essence it doesn't have anything to do with "movie poster
collecting", does it? It's an investment decision. A business move. And so
I think Philip was off the mark when he enthused about this kind of price action
being what "real" movie poster collecting is all about.
Final note: I concluded my original "throw away" that kind of money post
with the suggestion that just talking about prices is not all that interesting,
but that I would really like to see more discussion about the relative merits of
various Universal horror pieces... the art... the rarity of one over another...
the printing techniques... etc. So far, no one has ventured in those areas. It's
an topic where I could use more information (like the
Japanese version of APOCALYPSE NOW... or the polish MIDNIGHT COWBOY).
So, c'mon, you worms and billionaires... let's really talk about movie
posters!
-- JR
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- Re: [MOPO] Heritage Auction Results - ... J R
- Re: [MOPO] Heritage Auction Resul... Sean Linkenback
- Re: [MOPO] Heritage Auction Resul... Kainbach
- Re: [MOPO] Heritage Auction R... JOHN REID Vintage Movie Memorabilia
