Sean,
C'mon, I write clearly and you are intelligent and perfectly capable of
understanding what I wrote. My last paragraph was clearly a sidebar
pointing out why we don't see more auctions with such a certificate --
backed up by the fact was that even this auction house which had a
certificate did not start putting in the description what was on the
certificate (or make the certificate available for viewing) until after
people started looking into this auction and asking pointed questions
about it on MOPO. What the seller has now done in the description is
what should have been done voluntarily from the beginning. And now that
we can view the actual certificate at
http://www.icollector.com/Dracula-one-sheet-poster_i8632506 we can see
that it does contain talk about and show microscope pictures of "fiber"
and "printing techniques" being consistent with an original-release
poster of the time, which is good to know.
Note that the presence of the certificate *was* instrumental in getting
the auction house to clarify its description, up to a point, about the
amount and nature of restoration on the poster, so I think that
vindicates the idea of having such a thing when auctioning a very
expensive poster.
While this certificate is a detailed and impressive document from John
Davis, it stops short of what I would like to see (but which I admit
would be hard to do with a linen-backed poster): A true third-party
"opinion of authenticity" certificate would state that in the issuing
expert's best opinion that the poster appears to be __x__%
original-issue paper. I don't think we've seen anything like that so far
(and maybe never will) but it is clearly what is needed for these very
expensive posters. Buyers need to know not only what was air-brushed and
touched up, but how much new paper was added.
I firmly believe that it should no longer be acceptable for any poster
less than 40% original paper to be called "original". Instead, it should
be called a "re-creation containing _x_% original paper."
Would such a sea change in doing business this way end up lowering the
prices on some "heavily restored" posters? You betcha. And it should.
That is what already happens in any other field of collecting. Can you
imagine some respectable and venerated antique auction house offering an
expensive Louis XIV writing desk as being "original in fine condition"
when in fact the desk was composed of 40% new wood made to look like old
wood?
The bottom line is that for far too long poster buyers and sellers have
been willing to accept re-creations containing far too little original
paper as being "authentic originals". We have now seen where that
attitude ultimately leads us. It's time to change our attitudes about
restoration to be more realistic and disclosure-oriented.
-- JR
Sean Linkenback wrote:
Isn't this certificate the "third party authentication" that you are
complaining sellers don't want?
And yet here is a seller providing it and you still aren't happy.
-- Sent from my Palm Pre-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Richard wrote:
I fail to understand how a professional restorer could fail to "check
for accuracy" of something they were adding to a poster. How could a
pro not realize that he couldn't just copy the number off of a Style F
version of the poster onto this one? This is the kind of thing you pay
a pro to handle properly.
And how can anyone possibly describe a poster as "100% original" and
still admit that something was added at the bottom (meaning at least
that part of the original poster was gone and so there is no way it
can possibly be "100% original")? An accurate description would be "A
genuine x-number-of-years old original theatrical release poster with
minor restoration to the fine print in the bottom margin."
I mean, if the seller didn't know about the restoration, I can see how
it would be left out -- but the seller has the COA which mentions the
restoration.
Of course, this is why sellers don't want to adopt this idea of having
a third-party authentication certificate accompanying an expensive
poster at auction. The authenticator will have to detail the aspects
of restoration he can identify and the seller will have to put those
details in the description so and the buyer would actually know what
he was getting and so adjust his bidding accordingly... horrors!
-- JR
Stephen Fishler wrote:
This info from Poster Mountain's restoration report and would explain
things.
"John Davis states at the top of his COA that the writing in the
margin was added in pencil by hand and not checked for accuracy. I
would assume when this poster was linen backed the 'fine print' was
added to the bottom from a different Dracula poster. we are adding
the COA on line with the poster description today to our site
www.profilesinhistory.com and www.icollector.com. This poster is
100% original and anyone with questions should feel free to call me
or John Davis directly" Joe Maddalena
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