Re: [MOPO] How many poster collectors are there?

[JR]

Andy,   Sure, we can speculate. That's all we can do. But if we're going to speculate and have it be worthwhile, you have to go basis it on some realistic data -- or at least an estimate based on real data.  What we know -- or at least can make a reasonably reliable guess at -- is the number of vintage posters sold each year on public venues like ebay and other public auctions. By the way I am now specifying "vintage" poster (over 10 years old) to eliminate the casual buyer who sees DUDE, WHAT HAPPENED TO MY CAR? and decides to buy a poster from that film off eBay or a website just to stick up on his dorm room wall for a semester.   So, if we have about 80,000 vintage movie posters sold each year -- and we define an "active" collector as one who buys at least 4 posters per year, you get 20,000 active collectors. I think you have to cut that number in half to account for all the collectors who buy a lot more than 4 per year. That's about 10,000 -- interesting to note: That's a number most of the long-time sellers seem comfortable with, based on their experience. Again, if we're going to speculate knowledgeably, we have to go with what experience tells us... or the experience of others in a position to know tell us.   I have to repeat that if there were anything remotely close to 100,000 *active* movie poster collectors in the world that we would see a whole lot more posters sold per year than we do now.   If you can demonstrate that I'm somehow seriously underestimating the number of movie posters sold in a year, then there would be a reason to revise the guess on the number of active collectors upward. But just picking a number out of a hat, like 100,00, that you can't demonstrate has any statistical basis to believe in, well, then you're just engaging in a "wishful thinking" form of speculation. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't see the point.   SIDEBAR: To respond to another question... No, of course one doesn't have to be an "active" collector to be a movie poster collector or enjoy movie posters. I'm sure that some great collectors with fantastic collections probably don't buy that many items per year anymore simply because they already have a lot of what they want. I don't buy as many as I did 3 or 4 years ago. But I think the idea behind this question was to determine the number of "active" collectors who are buying at least 4 per year. There's absolutely no way we can guess at the number of people who have collections of movie posters but hardly every buy additional items anymore. If we were to guess at the number of "movie poster collections" (not collectors) in the world, we would probably get up closer to 30,000 collections -- but that's just a wild guess. As I say, there's no much point in speculating without basing the speculation it in some kind of real, knowable sales data.   -- JR ----- Original Message ----- From: Andy Neal To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 17:50 Subject: Re: [MOPO] How many poster collectors are there? Ok, so lets say that is true JR Lets just think about America and Europe..... That's approx 751 Million... Is 100,000 such a big slice of that figure? I still say that what you are saying JR is not true as these "population below poverty line" figures speak many words China - 10% United States - 12% India - 25% OK So India has much more poverty, BUT..... China has less poverty than USA with a population of 1.3 Billion people so potentially it could have more disposable income per person, I'm not saying it has but you can't say it has not. These figure have all come from the CIA website. We can speculate all day but we will never know a true figure. I stand by my guess of 100,000 and as I have said this is just my own opinion. Andy          Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com    ___________________________________________________________________               How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List        Send a message addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]             In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L     The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.