At 12:48 PM 12/16/05, JR wrote:
Andy,
They don't have vast amounts of disposable income per person, not
compared to America and Europe. And that's the key to collecting
stuff, lots of disposable income that you don't have to use to live
on. I'm not saying there are no collectors in the 3rd world, but the
number must be very small compared to America and Europe (and
places like Australia and Japan).
this is only part of the issue with foreign collectors.
One reality is that in many countries, American films were hardly
ever shown to an audience that firstly did not speak English,
secondly were in largely rural areas that may have never even seen a
film from their own country much less an american film. How about if
you were behind the Iron Curtain.. you most certainly did not get
much in American fare. Take Frankenstein for instance, it was only
first released in Poland in the middle 60's, more than 30 years after
it's first release & I think Bride was never released. Was it ever
released in Russia?? So goes for many other countries.. Why would
someone in Mexico want an American poster when he would culturally
prefer a Cantinflas poster?
Another major factor as JR pointed out is If you live in India, and
presumably you might have a dollar to spend, why would you consider
spending it on a poster? the rural nature of most of the planet in
one sense means that you have less money than those who live in the
big cities. So using the entire world population as a base number is
silliness. However, seeing as collectors are concentrated in urban
areas and also countries we readily identify as "collector nations"
we can come up with some judgements.
Then take into consideration as well , "what countries have I sold to
in my 40 years" .. and the number becomes a bit clearer.
I have never sold anything to Peru and as a matter of fact, I have
only sold 3 items ever to South America - and he was an American
living in Brazil as a business executive. I have never sold anything
to Russia, maybe one time to Poland, I have sold lots of art to Italy
& France, but never to Finland, I have however sold alot of comic
CDRoms to Finland (I think someone once wrote an article in a
collector's magazine there, so I got sales). While I have sold
numerous items to Japan, I never sold to Thailand, Vietnam, Korea N
or S, Rangoon, Sumatra or Burma.. and I doubt many other dealers
have. I only sold 1 item ever to S. African nations and maybe twice
to N. African nations. So the reality is that while Europe,
Australia, NZ, Japan and a few other countries have collectors of
American memorabilia, probably 70-90% of the world population is
automatically eliminated.
Comic Book collectors I think number 100,000-200,000 people and most
are the young 10-25 that are not the type of hard core collector we
generally picture who spend serious money, but more like the ones who
buy 5-10 comics religiously every month on the news stand & store
them away, while maybe 25,000 are hard core spenders. I have no doubt
that there are far less movie poster collectors than comic book
collectors and even more I say that like comic collectors, their
population is diminishing in some way and while there will always be
the well heeled collectors, there isnt anyone at the bottom who will
move up the ladder & become well heeled at the same rate that there
was in the past due entirely to a cultural shift in our young and due
to a generation loss of history that we are seeing.
For instance, when I was a kid all my buddies had hobbies of some
sort be it baseball cards, playing baseball, comics, toy cars etc. We
also were very interested in history and knew the silent stars and
other historical figures, like George Washington. Our young today do
not have these similar interests. They want X-Box 360, DVD players,
I-pod, Big Screen TV and a brand new Mustang convertable which leave
very little $$$$$ for anything else and they aren't interested in
history like we were. Today the young (and to me anything under 30 is
young :-) ) think anything that happened more than 30 minutes ago
will never affect their lives in any way so why bother to remember it
or seek out history before it, so while you and I knew Charlie
Chaplin when we were kids, these young don't even know who Steve
McQueen is or George washington. So for this reason, much like comics
collecting, I think the population will only get smaller for the
average poster while any population at all for the better stuff will
always be a constant.
1920's - 50;s western posters will lose hobby interest in general,
but specific material like Tom Mix and John Wayne will always be
present. Bogart will always be an icon, but George Raft may yet be
forgotten except as a cult figure. How many Paul Muni collectors are out there?
but I digress, I real;ly think that 10,000 hard core & casual
collectors exist and that while it is possible that a much larger
number of people may buy one or two movie posters on a decorative
basis each year, I do not count them as collectors
Rich===============
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