Just look at the result of the other metropolis posters at sothebys in 2000. This was the best year of movie posters prices ever! And the other style is much better than his copy..in my opinion and it is in color.....just look at the austiran museum website.... Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
-----Original Message----- From: James Richard <jrl...@mediabearonline.com> Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:28:49 To: <MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU> Subject: Re: [MOPO] REYNOLD BROWN PAINTINGS Peter, Thanks for putting up a picture of the reverse side of the Reynold Brown painting for MAN WITHOUT A STAR that allows us to read the notations (I wish you'd do the same with a closeup of the notations on the front of WALK THE PROUD LAND as well) The notes indicate that this piece was in fact the original poster art for the 24-sheet. I am very surprised the studio would use a such tiny 14x6-inch original for something that big, but apparently they did. You learn something new every day. Even more interesting was the indication in the notes that Reynold Brown did not draw the poster himself, but did the color rendering of Monty Orr's drawing. And then, someone from the east coast sales office had another artist come along later and change some of what Reynold Brown had done to make the Kirk Douglas figure "more menacing". Fascinating stuff to me as an artist. My point about the Metropolis offering was not so much that a 300% markup is unusual... we've all often seen much higher markups. It was that a 300% markup on a $7,000 poster and a 300% markup on a $700,000 poster are two completely different animals. The first might be considered a "reasonable expectation" -- the seller invests $7,000 bucks and 10 years later sells the item for $21,000 and makes $14,000 profit. But he was selling into a market where there are a *lot* of people willing and able to pay $21,000 for a poster. But to expect to invest $700,000 in a poster and in 4 years sell it and make $1.3 million profit on the deal seems, to me, an "unreasonable expectation." At that price level you're selling into a very thin market. If you truly did offer $1.9 million for it, I can only shake my head in bewilderment at Ken turning you down. I was also wondering about the whole idea of selling such an item on ebay instead of consigning it to Christies or some other venue where multi-million dollar prices are common and buyers with that kind of purchasing power congregate. That seems to me almost as strange as Ken being able to buy it just 4 years ago for what everyone is now telling me was such a bargain basement price of only $690,000 -- private sale or no. I was told that this private sale was something brokered by an agent and that the agent shopped the poster around for months to quite a few people who might be interested in it and that the $690,000 was the most anyone would (or could) come up with at the time. Whether public auction or private sale -- if the sale price becomes public knowledge -- then either gets figured into the price range and either can establish a high watermark price that others will cite in the future. Of course, as we all know, there really ain't no such animal as the "real price" of any movie poster -- just a range that posters (even rare ones) fall into over time. It is equally well-known that there are always cases of individual sales where the price paid jumps way out of the "established range", both to the up and the down side. I agree with you that as a purely philosophical matter is is impossible to say what the Metropolis poster "is worth" in terms of historic/collectible value. But in practical terms, people and organizations and insurance companies put a dollar value on "priceless" works of art all the time. In the end I was just saying that in purely practical terms I thought $2 million was too much to reasonably expect to get at this time in these economic conditions. But that's my personal estimate of the current market, nothing more. And I've been wrong on that topic plenty of times before. -- JR peter contarino wrote: > > Hi All, > > > > Although I have been enjoying MOPO for years, this is my first post. > Let me preface this post by saying that MOPO is one of the rare > examples of what a forum should be: a place for people with a common > interest to engage in civil discussions and share information with one > another. That said, I would like to make a few comments and clarify a > few things from several recent threads regarding material that I have > listed on ebay. > > > > First, it was suggested by a member that Majestic Posters was another > ebay ID that Ken Schacter sells under. > > This is not the case. Majestic Posters is a business that Ken and I > recently formed and co-own. You can visit our site at: > http://www.majesticposters.com/shop/home.php. If anyone is interested > you can register and sign up for our newsletter which is _primarily > used to inform members of inventory updates _ and is sent when new > material is listed on the site. We are adding material weekly and are > presently compiling several thousand stills we recently acquired and > will be adding a Still/Photo Category soon. We currently have some of > these stills running on ebay. We are also in the process of increasing > the size of the item thumbnails on the site. I appreciate the feedback > from several people regarding that. > > > > Secondly, the Metropolis 3 sheet: JR stated that "$700 K was > obviously the high-water price at that point -- the most anyone > interested in that poster was willing to pay a couple of years ago". > This statement implies that the poster was for sale to the public, > presumably by way of an auction house. This was not the case. This was > in fact a private sale in the amount of $690,000. If it had been > auctioned, I suspect it would have fetched far more than the actual > sale amount. In any case, a private sale of an item is no barometer > of what the market will bear. He further stated that the amount > currently being asked was three times what Ken had paid, and for some > reason seemed to feel that this was an unreasonable multiple given the > fact that it was purchased in 2005. I'm not sure I understand the > reasoning here( In 1997 I purchased a set of /You Only Live Twice > /door panels for 175.00 and sold them at Christies one year later for > 17,000.00. Nearly 100 times what I paid for them.)The question of what > the Metropolis poster is "worth" is a pointless one. What is the > intrinsic value of any collectable? I don't know. I do know that > common items tend to go within a certain anticipated range. A rare or > unique item, however, can sell for any amount on any given day. > Depends on how many people want it and how badly they want it. Ken has > in fact had a substantial seven figure offer on Metropolis but > declined. This is the other side of the equation: What is a poster > worth to the seller? Evidently it's not worth it to Ken to sell for > less than 2,000,000.00. I myself offered him 1.9 million and the > miser wouldn't budgeJ > > > > Lastly, with regards to the Reynold Brown paintings I just listed on > ebay, I added some additional photos but unfortunately ebay limits the > size of photos that you can upload(short of using enhanced html > templates, etc-didn't have time) so the fine detail is lacking. I have > hi-res images both of the paintings themselves and the studio notes on > our website(The K. Douglas piece does in fact indicate on the reverse > side that it is intended to be used for the 24 sheet). > > > > You can view these at: > > > > http://www.majesticposters.com/shop/product.php?productid=17017&cat=270&page=1 > > <http://www.majesticposters.com/shop/product.php?productid=17017&cat=270&page=1> > > http://www.majesticposters.com/shop/product.php?productid=17018&cat=270&page=1 > > <http://www.majesticposters.com/shop/product.php?productid=17018&cat=270&page=1> > > > > -Peter Contarino > > > > > > > > > > . > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: lists...@listserv.american.edu In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
