I have received this e-mail 20 times thus far. Just the kind of error I would
have expected on an e-mail related to this Butterfield's auction!
Any long time movie poster expert who sells lots of top 1930s material knows
that the 1937 re-release It Happened One Night one sheet is a magnet for
shysters. Normally, the re-release date is altered to read "1934" (it only
takes changing one character). When I talked to someone who was going to the
Butterfield's preview on Saturday, the first thing I said was, "Check the It
Happened One Night one sheet to see if it was altered". He called me that the
date had not been altered, and he told the person in charge, and he received a
terse, "We know". But there was no correction of it in the online catalog, and
it remained the image used on the Butterfield's home page, with a direct link
to the uncorrected online auction, EVEN THOUGH THEY ABSOLUTELY ALREADY KNEW OF
THE MISTAKE.
In all my catalog auctions since the advent of the Internet, I DO use an image
in the catalog that does not show the borders of the poster (to improve the
books salability post-sale), but I DO have UNENHANCED images online of every
item, and those DO show the borders. That Butterfield's uses the same images in
both places is sloppy at best, and deceptive at worst.
I was told the lighting in the preview room was very poor, and that it was
next-to-impossible to judge the condition of the posters even in person, and of
course the catalog was of next-to-no help in judging condition.
That auction with its myriad catalog errors and poor preview facilities was a
textbook example of how NOT to run a movie poster auction. Its "95% sell
through rate" reflects the lack of reserves, but the low, low selling prices
reflect how poorly it was planned and executed.
Bruce Hershenson
At 01:09 PM 6/28/2006, you wrote:
>Just been plowing through my emails that piled up as I was driving back from
>Salt Lake City. This one from Bruce deserves a reply since his use of caps to
>indicate the position of the information which reveals that the Happened One
>Night poster was a 37 re-release seems to be a sarcastic comment on how
>obvious it was that the poster wasn't from 1934. If he was being ironic about
>the Bonham's staff, he's quite right. That was an error that should have been
>caught before the poster was put up in the pre-sale viewing, where it was
>almost immediately pointed out to the staff that it was mis-identified. But,
>of course, one could not tell this by looking at the catalog since the image
>of the borders had been trimmed out, a practice common in most auction
>catalogs, including the majority of the sales Bruce held at Christie's in New
>York plus the sales I ran at that venue and for Skinner's in Boston. The
>difficulty in determining the actual year of release just by looking at th!
e catalog is confirmed by the fact that when the poster's withdrawal was
announced, two of our hobby's top dealers (and authors) called to ask why. By
the way, an analysis of the sale's results reveals that they had a 95% sell
through rate, That's right up there in Heritage Country as far as moving merch
goes, but of course the $ total was nowhere near the kind of #s the behemoth of
Dallas generates. Regards, rudy franchi
>
>
>
>On Jun 27, 2006, at 4:54 PM, Bruce Hershenson wrote:
>
>>Damn
>>
>>I missed that Bonhams auction yesterday. I heard they had a STRANGERS ON THE
>>TRAIN insert. I have been trying to find that baby in top condition for quite
>>some time, and I understand the one they had was in "A-" condition (I have
>>the catalog right here in front of me and it says so). Anyone know what it
>>went for, and if it was in as cherry condition as they said?
>>
>>I heard that they mis-identified the It Happened One Night one-sheet as
>>original, when it was actually the 1937 re-release. Of course I completely
>>understand that that kind of mistake can happen to even a top professional
>>movie poster expert, because it is easy to miss the "1937" RIGHT AT THE
>>BOTTOM LEFT OF THE POSTER.
>>
>>Bruce
>>
></blockquote></x-html>
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