Of course I am too close to this to possibly be in the slightest objective,
but I think the movie poster hobby transcends baseball cards and comic
books, and even coins and stamps, in a special way.
If you didn't grow up with baseball cards or comic books, or if you didn't
catch the coin or stamp bug somewhere early on, then you are likely
mystified that some people pay a thousand times as much for one coin over
another, when they both look quite a bit alike, except one has a different
date, or a mint stamp, or is in better condition, but both look nearly
perfect. The same is true to a large extent for stamps, comics, or cards,
for one is awfully like all the rest, with the differences pretty minor, but
all-important to those deep in the hobby.
But to me, hardly any two posters are alike, and the poster hobby has items
to appeal to just about every person on the planet! There have been a couple
of hundred thousand movies, and a dozen or more posters and a set of 8 cards
were made on most of them, so there are a couple of million or more distinct
movie posters and cards (and that's just in the U.S., add in non-U.S. and
that is likely a couple of million more!), and you can pick ANY subject
whatsoever and build a collection on that topic.
Like posters or cards that show gambling? There are probably thousands of
them (ask Rich about those). Like posters or cards that show famous Jewish
people or movies with Jewish themes? Ask Zeev about how many of those there
are. Like posters or cards that show Godzilla movies? Ask Sean about how
many of those there are. And on and on.
What I think is so wonderful about movie posters or lobby cards is that
whatever your interests, whatever your age, and whatever size or year or
genre or country you choose, you can build a collection that will take years
and years to build and you likely still won't be nearly complete, and you
can limit your spending quite a bit and not be relegated to pretty boring
items, as you would be in so many other hobbies, for many really fun movie
posters or cards are still very affordable.
The hobby may never grow huge, and it may never attract those rich "investor
types" who have become such a major force in so many hobbies, but I think it
will continue strong for many many years to come, for the reasons I outlined
above!
Bruce
On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 10:09 PM, Dave Rosen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I agree with everything you guys've said so far, but think there will be
> some areas where there will be "holdouts" in poster collecting.
>
> First of all, I think horror as a genre will continue to be very heavily
> collected for some time to come, though as time goes by the field will be
> narrowed to a relatively small number of specific titles. As one of you
> already said, many of these, like the Universal stuff, will be collected
> almost as art prints along with key mainstream titles.
>
> And, just as there is a market for "outsider art" I think there will
> continue to be some interest in outrageous and outre stuff. This is a niche
> market but one with some staying power. I deal with quite a few younger
> artists/musicians/designers who are just discovering this area and have yet
> to hit their prime as collectors.
>
> Dave
> www.posteropolis.com
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Bruce Hershenson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> *To:* MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
> *Sent:* Sunday, November 30, 2008 5:26 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [MOPO] Could this replace collecting actual movie posters?
>
> My 5 kids (age 4-15) read EC comics because their dad and grandpa
> reprinted all of them, but otherwise they never read a single comic book.
>
> But all but the 4 year old are champions on every kind of video game, and
> they have every kind of system, and so does just about every other kid in
> this little town, and all over the world.
>
> I had to laugh when I heard there was a "large type" edition of the Comic
> Book Price Guide. When you and I were teens we were ridiculed by all adults
> for wasting out time reading comic books, and now it is mostly aging baby
> boomers who care about comics, and the kids could care less!
>
> Bruce
>
> On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 4:21 PM, Richard Halegua Comic Art <
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> yes Bruce, BLB's are also part of the historical lexicon of collecting. As
>> a matter of fact, BLB's and Pulps have the same problem: only comic book
>> collectors have an interest in them due to the tie between the 3 hobbies.
>>
>> But pulps are in worse shape than BLBs by virtue of % of issues collected.
>> There are something like 40,000 different pulp issues from 1895-1955 (not
>> including most digest sized titles of the 1950s). Only about 2000 of them
>> are collected today and titles like Argosy, Blue Book, Detective Fiction
>> Weekly etc are hardly noticed except for those trying to acquire specific
>> authors. Most pulp collecting is confined to Shadow, Doc Savage, Spider,
>> Weird Tales, Black Mask, Terror Tales etc. Even 95% of all Sci-Fi titles are
>> dogs and things like westerns are better used to keep your fireplace going
>>
>> at least in BLBs there are very many with characters from comics.
>>
>> But yes. all o fthese hobbies are on the way out. For younger collectors,
>> the most popular things will be video games in the original boxes, and box
>> art because like us, who collected comics & posters etc because we had lots
>> of fun with them as youngsters, their generation is all about video.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> At 02:09 PM 11/30/2008, Bruce Hershenson wrote:
>>
>> Boy, you really are a ray of sunshine today! In your complete dissing of
>> all paper hobbies, and their inevitable doom (insert maniacal laughter) you
>> left out the deadest of all collectibles, the Big Little Books. Find me a
>> collector of those who is under 75 or so.
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>> P.S. I didn't much care for "My Side of the Mountain", but I loved "The
>> Other Side of the Mountain" and posters on both of these can be had for a
>> buck or two each, which is what makes this a fun hobby. You can buy 30-40
>> year old posters from movies you liked for little money, and what's wrong
>> with that?
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Richard Halegua Comic Art <
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I've been saying for the past 3-4 years.. maybe longer .. that digital
>> displays are the direction theatres will be headed
>>
>> first of all, printing, shipping and storing posters are an expense that
>> studio owners would love to eliminate. Not to mention the employees needed
>> for such a distribution network.
>>
>> these employees need to inventory, request out of stock posters from other
>> warehouses, have to take those rolls of 50 and pull 1-5 posters to send out
>> to individual theaters etc.
>>
>> shipping by truck after printing and then individually to theaters is a
>> greater expense than printing them
>>
>> also, if a poster has a mistake, it has to be reprinted etc.
>>
>> a digital display can be controlled by one central location by the studio
>> - out of the hands of theatre owners - to maintain a consistent promotion
>> from the theatres in Westwood to those in Montauk and all the way to Japan,
>> India and Australia with great ease. A simple program can be set up to
>> change the language fonts
>>
>> When the studio wants to change the campaign, all they have to do is
>> create it in the central computer & feed it - simultaneously all over the
>> world
>>
>> But then you go further. Digital displays can show trailers intermingled
>> with posters and can draw people who were just walking past the theatre
>> better than a static poster. Plus you can "gang them up" creating ever
>> larger displays with multiple digital panels. How about driving into a mall
>> & seeing 20 digital panels fitted together to create an 8 foot by 20 foot
>> display showing trailers that can be seen across the parking lot. Literally
>> an outdoor cinema
>>
>> The benefits of digital displays for theatres are endless. You have a
>> single upfront cost and then you never ship anything to the theatre again
>> and the same system that is used to feed the displays can also be used to
>> feed the film itself for digital theatres. another savings
>>
>> where does the hobby go?
>> well, it would be hard to say that it doesn't drop some, and certainly
>> newer collectors would be less likely
>>
>> Look at the comics hobby. Marvel & DC publish fewer comics today than they
>> did during the 1940s. As a matter of fact, if you total up all the comic
>> books published and distributed for any month of 2008, it is fewer issues
>> than a single issue of Captain Marvel sold during WW2. (during WW2, Captain
>> Marvel sold 2 million copies @ month. Current publishing by all companies is
>> less than 1.5 million @month. Another comic, Walt Disney's Comics & Stories
>> had a print run as high as 4 million for years from the 40s-50s) As a result
>> of fewer comic book readers (due to social changes- less people reading
>> anything), the comic book hobby is decreasing in size and has been doing so
>> for about 15 years.
>>
>> The result is not the elimination of these hobbies, but serious
>> compression is indeed in the future. At some point Marvel & DC will cease
>> paper publication as will all newspapers and magazine. The likely future is
>> a mini-disc for a "reader" that you take wherever you go, in addition to
>> just reading online of course. When this happens, millions of comics will
>> devalue in a short period of time (a few years). Fewer collectors means more
>> unsold titles and downsizing to just the most popular material for hardcore
>> collectors and historians. Superman comics will always be collected at some
>> level. the 1940s title Mystery Men will be a tiny niche for historically
>> oriented collectors only. The same will be for posters.
>>
>> Younger people will stop buying posters. THat generation will have digital
>> displays so they can change whatever they want to show
>>
>> Posters for the obvious titles will always sell. A poster after all is the
>> same as an "art print". so Frankenstein, Casablanca, Snow White will always
>> sell. Getting Gerties Garter however, or My Side of the Mountain.. well they
>> are hardly requested anyway. So the hobby will compress as our generations
>> die off, much like that nearly forgotten hobby - pulp magazines
>>
>> Rich
>>
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