Thanks, Sean and Rich, for an interesting report.
Richard Del Belso Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2010 17:20:36 -0700 From: sa...@comic-art.com Subject: Re: [MOPO] My (not so) Much Anticipated Cinevent Report To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU I second Sean's report, most especially about seeing my friend Adrian Cowdrey whom I had been concerned about for all the time he was being treated for his cancer. Sadly, he wasn't having any more beer by the time I got to the bar and so I was not able to buy him one.. so I hope I get to the bar earlier next year. But it was fantastic to see him and he looked great which assuaged his all of his friend's concern considerably and yes indeed I did get to buy some real cool stuff and some of this will start turning up in my auctions in the next weeks. especially the window cards Sean is talking about.... At 04:59 PM 6/9/2010, Sean Linkenback wrote: Quick Review for those with less time: Show = Good, Auction = Not so much. Read further if you would like more details. My wife and I arrived for Cinevent on Thursday afternoon to get there in time for dealers set-up that evening. As usual, the hotel was already busy with some dealers arriving as early as Tuesday evening to meet and look through each others wares. It's always great to get reacquainted with old friends, talk some shop, gossip and look through whatever material they have brought to the show. Especially glad to see Adrian back from across the pond after a two-year absence. Although the dealers room was regrettably missing some of our the old standbys, it was still full and a couple of new faces helped assure there was plenty of material to go around. Gene Arnold brought his friend Irv with him and Richard Halegua was the first to get a look at his fresh stack and quickly called me over. As soon as the other hawk-eyes in the place saw the two of us a mini-feeding frenzy occurred with dealers/collectors coming out of the woodwork to grab their place in line.* (*This scene led to one of my few complaints for the weekend. For the life of me I don't understand how so-called big-time dealers can appreciate the efforts that Steve and crew go through to put on the only major gathering for poster collectors left, fly in from say New York and then not respect the event or organizers enough to even buy a membership badge. Shame on you and your cheapness. Is it really too much to ask for you to spend $15 on a membership? You have no problem spending $300K on a Dracula one-sheet, how about a little bit for the show that you fly out to every year to buy from?) A lot of people were naturally curious to see some of the Universal horror fakes up close and with some great assistance from Jim Gresham and Grey Smith we were able to educate people about this problem all weekend, showing several examples: Ghost of Frankenstein 3-sheet and Insert, Frankenstein R-47 1-sheet, Creature From the Black Lagoon 1-sheet, and a couple of lobby cards. At least 100 people stopped by our tables over the weekend to to get a better look at these infamous pieces, most collectors and dealers were shocked to see how nice these items appeared in person, and it was a great feeling to be able help so many people learn about them. Saturday brought a heavier turnout than Friday (attendance for the weekend was very strong despite the economy with nearly 700 people coming out), and we enjoyed some nice sales through-out the day (possibly benefiting from the absence of dealers in the room at times as John has pointed out) and even had a few customers bring posters specifically to the show for us to buy. All told we had a great buying weekend, spending well into the five figures for much needed material (some of which will be featured in our next no-reserve .99ยข auction starting in the next week or two). Although we refrained from spending too much on stills during the weekend, we also noticed that they seemed to be a very hot commodity with many collectors and dealers trading briskly in them. Unfortunately, one of the things that we usually enjoy the most turned out to be very disappointing - the annual Vintage Poster Art Auction. Sarcastically I can say - The auction was a resounding success, with a surprisingly low 77% pass rate given the high reserves, over grading, and undisclosed restoration; or taking a more realistic look at it as Bruce did in his weekly e-mail message - It is probably time for Morrie to take a second look at the auction and make some changes to make it more competitive with the other market forces and a more enjoyable event altogether. And I say what I am about to with the utmost respect for Morrie, he is one of the true gentleman in the hobby/business and has a love and knowledge of posters that is second to none. This was the first year for me that the auction catalog didn't arrive until after the auction was over (though I have heard of this happening to others before), combine this with the fact that the online catalog didn't even "go live" until a couple of weeks before the auction probably helped to put a dark cloud over the event before it even got going. I had made a good-sized list of items that I was interested in bidding on before getting to Columbus, but was sorely disappointed in a majority of the items when I was finally able to inspect them. Some random complaints in no particular order: 1) The grading is all over the place - both over and under. I don't have a problem with people that grade differently than I do, there is no standardized system and everyone does it slightly different, but items in the auction seemed wildly inconsistent. There were some items graded "B" that were totally unrestored and nice, while others graded "B" might have been paperbacked and totally dipped in paint with large sections having been worked on. 2) The internet photos are far too small. In this day and age there is no excuse not to have large online photos of everything you are offering. Even the photos offered through Proxybid were much larger than those on the Hollywood Poster Auction homepage. 3) Undisclosed restoration. This is just a killer in my book. And I'm not talking about a linenbacked 3-sheet where you expect there to some touch-up, I'm talking about lobby cards and other sizes where no mention of work is in the description, yet when you get to examine the piece it is full of paint. 4) Incredibly unrealistic reserves. Again, I'm not talking about Pinocchio having a $6,000 reserve, I'm talking about ordinary items all having $100 reserves when they might realistically be $20-30 pieces. For example this Revenge of the Jedi promotional piece ( http://hollywoodposterauction.com/default.aspx?Action=ShowLot&alt=13424 ) Heritage and Bruce both have offered this and the last one Bruce had sold for $17. You can't have multiple examples like this and NOT have a high pass rate, and it brings down the whole tone of the auction. I really feel that if Morrie was to implement some of these changes that this auction could easily return to it's former glory of 10-15 years ago when it was one of the can't miss events of the year. As for our own sales mini-market report - we were very pleased to move a great variety of lobbies over the weekend including a couple of classic Universal horror title cards (the demand is still there, people just want to feel safe with who they are buying from), and other great lobbies from classic cinema including some nice Hitchcock title cards, Marilyn Monroe, James Bond, and the usual assortment of 50s sci-fi creatures. All in all, a great weekend and I can't wait to repeat it next year - especially after just hearing from Steve about some of the plans they have in store to improve the show. 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