That's really amazing. I guess that means that those early 1930s
Paramount lobbies with people like George Raft, Carole Lombard,
Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant are pretty much of little or
no value now. Nobody knows those people any more! I do think that
the sour economy is contributing to this as well. Channing
This begs the question -- what is hot in this hobby? Ideas?
On Jul 1, 2010, at 10:09 PM, Richard Halegua Comic Art wrote:
Channing my brother, it's the new reality. the people who wanted
that stuff are dying everyday
or completed their collections (which is kind of the same thing as
dying)
I have also been selling Rita Hayworth for bargain basement prices,
like Cover Girl for $10 each
20 years from now, most golden age stars will be red dwarfs and no
one will collect them except hard core fans
At 09:53 PM 7/1/2010, channinglylethomson wrote:
Is there something wrong with this hobby?
I ask this for the following reason. Today, I had an auction
closing on EBAY for an original 1941 lobby card -- a beautiful
linen-paper portrait card of Rita Hayworth and Fred Astaire in a
tuxedo from YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER that I've had for years. I
started this auction low because I was conducting a sort of test.
I wanted to see if a card like this would reach its real value at
auction on EBAY or not. Well, unfortunately, the lobby card sold
for a closing amount of $11.50. 15 years ago this card would have
sold for between $125. and $200. You probably could have made a
phone call and sold it for that. Now it sells for $11.50. I posted
the auction announcement on various sites including two separate
ones on MOPO. It ended up selling to a man in NYC for $11.50.
Now as you may imagine, I was disturbed that it sold for so
little. In the future, I will probably only start one of these low
opening bid, Bruce Hershenson-style auctions if the piece is
something like a lobby card or poster for a major 1950s science
fiction film or a classic movie or obviously collectible poster or
card. I think a lobby card like this one is still of value despite
changing tastes. Maybe I'm wrong but I think there are still
people who know who Rita Hayworth is and who Fred Astaire is and
admire their work and their films. However, since no one in MOPO
found this worth bidding on, even if they could have gotten the
card for as little as $12.50, maybe I'm all wrong.
Thoughts please?
Channing Thomson
P.S. One other consideration -- I live in a major American city
(San Francisco) where I routinely see elderly Chinese people
digging through trash cans all over downtown trying to find cans or
plastic bottles for recycling. Sometimes they carry big plastic
bags of these balanced on bamboo polls over their shoulders. These
are men and women who are often as old as 70 or 80. You really
can't go more than a block without seeing them digging through the
trash. Nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with this here
but it disturbs me and makes me think we may actually be in a
depression rather than just one the typical recessions. The
economy definitely BLOWS!
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