In retrospect, a hundred bucks for Realart material in the late
Seventies would have indeed been a really high price. As I recall,
Realart material was considered borderline junk and sold for peanuts
until the early Nineties, when the Universal material started to
skyrocket. (I recall picking up a MUMMY one sheet in 1985 for $200 and
bitching mightily about the cost.)
Greg Douglass
Phil Edwards Cinema Arts wrote:
Sean - thanks for the background on Realart.
You may know this... or who they were....in the late 70s in NYC, there
were a couple of guys who were selling posters out of a suite of
offices. I can't recall their names but I may well have been put on to
them via Jack Banning who then owned Poster America.
They had a mountain of Realart - basically one sheets, lobby sets and
22s, all unused and in multiple copies.
Everything was a $100 each.... one sheets, lobby sets, which seemed an
exhorbitant price for this material then as one could pick up used
Realart for a lot less than that then. The one thing I do remember was
their sales pitch was fairly prophetic as it turns out.... and that was
that in a few years Realart would become highly collected and worth a
lot of money.
Phil
Toochis Morin wrote:
Thanks so much, Sean. What an interesting topic.
I've never seen a Realart in person. The ones I've
seen on the internet are quite colorful. Thank God he
didn't make any art deco images, I'd really be in
trouble.
Toochis
--- Sean Linkenback <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Toochis Morin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Does anyone know the history of Realart? Are they
still around now? Of course, their work is
wonderful
but what makes them valuable? Were they limited
runs
as far as printing volume?
Realart was originally owned by Jack Broder who had
purchased the re-release
rights for the entire Universal library in the late
40s (if only he had
thought to secure rights for home video and TV
also). The company is still
around today in a more limited form, striking newer
prints of old films and
doing distribution.
I don't think their runs were any more limited than
other smaller
studios/distribution companies at the time like
TransWorld, Lippert, AA, etc
though certainly smaller than an MGM or 20th Century
Fox major release.
BUT...
Most of their (horror) films were released in the
1948-1953 time period
which predates most all of the more expensive/high
demand 50s sci-fi flicks.
Plus it is at least as hard to find Realart paper as
it is the rest of 50s
Sci-fi stuff.
These factors, combined with the oftentimes superior
scene selection
(despite the sometimes garish coloring) and
rarity/expense of the original
Universal pieces have placed them in extremely high
demand with collectors
today.
It really only makes sense though. Great scene
cards from 50s sci-fi/horror
titles routinely sell in the multi-hundred dollar
range, with some prime
examples and title cards bringing in excess of
$1000. So why shouldn't an
equal age or earlier Realart card of the greatest
horror icons ever bring a
similar amount if not more?
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